


Across the Many Miles

by FeoplePeel



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Background Joyce Byers/Jim Hopper, F/M, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Minor Original Character(s), Moving In Together, Multi, POV Alternating, Polyamory, Sibling Bonding, Slow Burn, monster hunting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-10
Updated: 2016-10-05
Packaged: 2018-08-07 23:16:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 50,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7733656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FeoplePeel/pseuds/FeoplePeel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nancy packed her bags and moved out West for Caltech. Jonathan’s East at NYU. Steve’s in the middle, Hawkins, Indiana and separated from the only people who understand by a seemingly endless stretch of land on each side.<br/>The story doesn't start there, but it doesn't end there, either.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Jonathan

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to [Liz](http://archiveofourown.org/users/kazzashepard/pseuds/kazzashepard) for betaing.

_“You act like you're all alone out there in the world, but you're not.”_

Jonathan looks at Steve, who’d grabbed his elbow on the way into school and echoed words so similar to his mother’s that he couldn’t help but stare.

“What did you say?”

“I _said_ ,” Steve clacks his teeth together on the last syllable. It looks painful. “You act all lonely, but you’ve got friends now, man. Me and Nance, you can talk to us. You don’t have to eat lunch alone. Or whatever it is you do during school.”

Jonathan laughs. “We’re not friends, Steve.”

That may have been...blunt. But beyond a slight wrinkling at the bridge of his nose, Steve looks unruffled.

Jonathan plays with the fabric of his jeans. “I look at you, and all I can think about is-”

“Say no more.” Steve holds up his hands. “I said...a lot of nasty things before you, ehm, turned my face into a steak.” He lifts a finger to his cheek, traces invisible wounds. “I never got to apologize, officially. I _am_ sorry.”

“I know.” Jonathan can feel his own face scrunch unevenly, lip curling against his will. “I still can’t.”

Steve makes an aborted motion with his hand. Maybe he was reaching out to shake? Jonathan doesn’t know; he can’t raise his eyes. He hears an irritated sigh.

“Can you help me out? A hint?”

“Honestly?” He manages to look up, then, and catches Steve’s eyes as he nods with far too much eagerness. “You remind me of my dad. Always saying just what you think people need to hear.”

Steve’s face falls for just a second before his lips thin into a line. Tch, small towns. Steve knows about Lonnie. Everyone in town does.

“I remind you of _your dad_?”

“Yeah.”

And then Steve can’t meet his face, kicking the dirt near his tire. “Sorry but you'll still have to see me. Nancy, you know?”

As though speaking her name drew her, Nancy appears from between two nearby cars, hair pulled back high and tight.

“Hey, Nance! Walk you to class?”

Nancy rolls her eyes because an overly charming Steve Harrington usually wants something. Still, she’s smiling, and her color is better than it’s been the last few weeks.

Certainly better than Will’s, and that worries Jonathan more than he wants to think about.

He snaps a picture of their retreating backs, fingers twined and resting on Nancy’s hip.

* * *

 Later that day, Nancy storms into the darkroom.

“You told him he reminds you of your _father_?”

_Great._

Jonathan had very purposefully decided to only produce a few family photos and still lifes. Experience was a novel thing, and he wasn’t expecting a _second_ Christmas gift, after all.

“What happened to not caring if I liked him?”

“That was before!”

“Before you started dating again?” Jonathan smiles. Nancy does not.

“Before he _saved your life_ ,” she hisses.

“And I saved his!”

Jonathan can’t believe they’re talking about this. They _don’t_ talk about this, it’s...like a rule. She seems to realize it at the same time and clamps her mouth shut.

“He asked me to be honest,” he points out, taking pity on her, redirecting the conversation.

“That's just a thing people say!” She waves a hand in front of her face. “You don't go around telling people they're awful for it!”

“He had no problem saying that stuff about my family!”

“He _apologized_! It was wrong, but he apologized.”

“So I should?” He crosses his arms, a challenge.

“No.” She bites her lips. “Not if you don't mean it.”

Jonathan thinks. He had mostly said what he did to hurt Steve, get a rise out of him, but...the thought of Lonnie and Steve side by side made something in his brain short circuit.

He doesn’t think his dad’s ever apologized for anything in his life.

“Are you done berating me now? Because I kind of have to concentrate on these.”

He knows he’s pouting. Nancy isn’t his mother or his girlfriend. They’re _barely_ friends. He doesn’t have to…

A stack of papers are slammed onto the tabletop next to him.

“Notes from chem class. We missed a good number of days, and you missed more.” She coughs. “With Will.”

His fingers clench around the edge of the table. “Thanks, Nancy.”

“Whatever, Jonathan.” She must be at the door now, her voice sounds farther away. He thinks he’s broken it again, the gentle string that held whatever passed for kinship between them, but then she adds, much more gently, “There’s a test on Thursday. Let me know if you want to study.”

* * *

Steve had said Jonathan would have to see him, but two weeks pass, and it’s as though the two of them go to different schools. If it weren’t for the gossip in the hallways that always follows him now (and more and more carries Steve and Nancy’s names with it), he’d assume Steve had dropped out entirely. Studying was never Steve’s deal, but even Jonathan can tell the other boy is going out of his way to make sure their paths don’t cross.

Nancy doesn't bother with such niceties. The few times Jonathan asks after Steve, her anger ignites between breaths, the pinched expression returning to her face and staying until they’re done studying. Jonathan understands. Her loyalties are torn.

Nancy _doesn’t_ understand (says so loudly and often). She’s not as company-hungry as Steve Harrington, but he knows about the things they don’t talk about. The closeness she misses with her own best friend. The late night conversations she’ll never get back. How could Jonathan not want to grasp at _that_ when she’s lost it?

She doesn’t know the difference between isolation and solitude.

When he does, finally, see them together it’s at the first football game of spring. Steve seems...fine. Happy, even.

Jonathan takes a picture of them, then Nancy, then Steve. When they’re developed, it’s easier to see they’re none of them happy, really.

Even Steve Harrington.

He doesn’t apologize, exactly. But he works up the nerve to sit with them at lunch that Friday, and Steve takes it for the olive branch it is.

* * *

They don't become a group of friends the way Will’s group is. In fact from what Jonathan can see, Steve and Nancy only ever hang out with one another, but he gathers that’s a normal fare for couples. Some things become habitual. Steve comes around the library when Nancy and Jonathan are studying, and no one tenses. Nancy visits the darkroom if Jonathan skips lunch, and Steve only shows up there when he skips class. They both treat it like church, going silent and still and watching Jonathan work. The gossip eventually moves on to newer, fresher targets.

It’s all very ordinary.

* * *

“Nice day for pictures.”

“...sure.”

It’s starting to rain, and maybe Steve’s suggesting they should take their conversation, if it is that, inside. Jonathan lets it die instead and raises his lens to snap another picture of some crushed cigarette butts behind the bleachers.

Steve runs a hand through his hair. It flattens for a moment before springing back to its full height. It’s just long enough for Jonathan to catch it in his fisheye. Steve glares down the lens, half-insulted, half-amused.

“Worried all the product will bleed out?” Jonathan snorts a laugh, lowering his camera.

“Haha.” Steve’s glare dims into something different, edging into concern. The thought of feelings and Steve make the hair on the back of Jonathan’s neck prick anxiously. Steve’s so...friendly sometimes, so open and honest, that it’s a near pain talking to him. Talking, just the two of them, rarely happened for a reason. “I'm worried about Nancy.”

 _Oh good_. Nancy’s a safe topic.

“Her mom and mine, they talk. Said her grades were dropping.”

“Nancy?”

“Yeah,” Steve scoffs, sounds equally incredulous. “And I know she's not sleeping well. Would you just...talk to her for me?”

“She's your girlfriend, you talk to her.” Jonathan ducks under a beam of the stands, heading towards the side door of the library. The rain is getting heavy enough for him to worry about his equipment.

A hand on his wrist stops him.

“What you two went through,” Steve’s hand slips on his jacket’s material, but it just leaves him holding Jonathan’s fingers instead, and Jonathan transfers the camera to his other hand looking a little shocked. “I mean I was there, but...hey, hey!”

Whatever hopes Jonathan had that this is an accident are dashed as Steve grabs at him more firmly, turning his hand skyward. He knows exactly what Steve’s looking at.

“Just talk to her please?”

Jonathan stares at the scar on his hand underneath Steve's fingertips and knows he’s lost. “All right.”

Steve’s smile is blinding. “Thanks, man.”

“Steve, can you... _please_ let go of my hand now?”

“Oh, sorry, sorry!”

* * *

Nancy seems fine to Jonathan.

Granted, he’s not the gold standard in that regard, but Steve had asked _his opinion_ , so here he was...observing. And there Nancy was studying and looking, for all intents and purposes, _fine_.

“Steve isn't my boyfriend,” Nancy says when Jonathan comes right out and asks if she’s okay. That her boyfriend is worried about her. He leaves out her mother because by all appearances the girl was smothered enough without needing to _know_ about it. “Did he tell you we were dating?”

No, Jonathan reflects, Steve hadn’t. But neither were jumping to correct anyone on that point until now so….

“I just thought…” Jonathan lets the sentence wander with his thoughts. Maybe Nancy would pick up on both.

“I’m...I broke up with him because I'm leaving at the end of this year.” She blinks a little harder than usual. “I can't stay here anymore...” She sets her jaw, and Jonathan feels guilty at how glad he is that she’s the kind of girl who shouts at the world instead of cries. He’s not had to deal with a _crying_ Nancy Wheeler as of yet, but he privately thinks that may be more in Steve’s wheelhouse.

“God I don't want to leave Mike alone, but,” she lets out a long breath, “it's too much you know?”

He did. He was having the same inner conflict regarding Will and his upcoming move to NYU. No matter how excited his mother and brother are for their so-called exciting escape to New York (that is the eleven hour drive to drop him off and get a bit of exploring in), his gut twists when he thinks of Will, alone for hours at the house. Or his mother forgetting to eat _again_.

But he had worked for that scholarship. And higher education means more money later. It means _Will_ not having to work so hard to go to college himself.

 _Maybe_ , an insidious voice whispers, _maybe..._

 _What if something happens to Will or mom while you’re away,_ it says. _Would it be worth it to leave? What if...what if..._

Best not to think about it.

"Where are you going?" he asks her.

"Caltech. I think."

Caltech. She’s practically thrown herself on the other side of America from him.

"With your new grades?" He tsks, mock stern.

"I got a C in Honors History." She gives him a look that says, _don’t scold me, Jonathan Byers, these eyes have seen monsters, and these hands have slain them._ It was a look he had seen before she had done either, but of course, neither of them recognized it.

With her mouth, she says, "That's the trouble with being a perfect student. The C may as well stand for _calamitous_.”

He smiles and, surprisingly, finds he means it. "Good luck, Nancy Wheeler."

"Thanks.” She looks confused. “Hey, Jonathan, it's not like it'll be goodbye. I'll be back to visit. Holidays and stuff."

"Of course." He couldn't make the same promise. Eleven hours was a drive, and flights are an expense he can't afford, even two hour ones.

She points at his camera. "Picture for the road?"

“You’re not leaving now, are you?” he teases. “I’m pretty sure it’s lunch time in the Sunshine State.”

“Well it’s _supper_ time here.” She smiled, picking up the books she had scattered around her. “And Mom’s making breakfast foods.”

Jonathan laughs. “Yum.”

* * *

Jonathan gets his acceptance letter a week after Nancy. Steve is accidentally the first person he tells.

He would have told his mom or Will if he had the choice, but suddenly Steve is on his doorstep with a box of stuff from Nancy’s house.

“I think half of this is Will’s, but I know some of this is yours.” Steve digs through, pulling out a beaten sweater wrapped inside a jacket. “Hey, that’s mine…”

“She could have kept them.”

“Not much room in a dorm.” Steve leans against the box on the hightop counter. “And her mom’s _suburban_ , you know?” He grins unrepentant. “Likes to keep things _tidy_.”

“You mean she’d burn our clothes?”

“I do mean she would burn our clothes, yes.”

“Well, we can keep it in my closet, I guess. I’m pretty sure Mom hasn’t looked in there since I was afraid of a monster.”

And how recent was that, he considers? They both politely ignore each other’s twin shudder, and Steve says, almost offhandedly, “I love your mom.”

Jonathan purposefully doesn't think about the memory of Steve shouting abuses about her at his back.

“Is it hard staying here?” Steve asks, settling the box at the back of the closet.

He's looking around now, remembering the last time he was here probably, when all the Christmas lights were up, and Jonathan was dragging him by the hand over a bear trap and away from monstrous jaws.

Jonathan thinks about the spot in the hallway where the bear trap had been, where they’d watched a monster burn. “Good memories outweigh the bad I guess.”

“Yeah, yeah. Sorry, didn't mean to get morbid.” Steve sits on the edge of the bed, silent for a beat. Jonathan wonders frequently if that’s as long as he’s capable of maintaining. “Nancy won't come to my house after what happened.”

 _After Barb,_ Jonathan silently fills in, sitting on the floor next to Steve’s feet. He thinks he understands. She tries not to come here, either. How uncomfortable does this place make her, he wonders? How uncomfortable is Steve now?

“How are you?”

Steve looks shocked. "Um good, man. Yeah, I'm good. I applied for college but I’ll probably end up working for my old man. You?"

"Got into NYU." Jonathan says it out loud for the first time and feels warmth climb from his stomach to his chest.

He feels _proud_.

"What?!” He can’t see Steve’s face, but his voice is awestruck. He coughs and starts again. “I mean what? That's awesome!"

Steve slides to the floor to join him, their knees bumping in the process. Jonathan smiles despite himself.

“Everyone's leaving, huh?” Jonathan doesn’t think Steve’s expecting an answer. “I feel like everything that happened was a dream.”

"A nightmare," Jonathan grunts, and Steve laughs.

"Yeah,” he nods, “I'll look out for Will while you're gone. And your mom."

“Thanks.”

“Hey, I'm not going anywhere. I told Nance, you know, I’d take care of Mike where I could. What’s one more kid?” Steve shrugs, and his ears are red (what part Jonathan can see behind his ridiculously large hair). “Just don't forget to send a postcard from your fancy learnin' school.”

Jonathan stares at him and thinks, not for the first time since he heard it, _you're an idiot, Steve Harrington._


	2. Nancy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seeings as how they played it fast and loose with some of the songs on the show (looking at you, Corey Hart) I don’t mind playing with the timeline a bit for references. All physics are mumbo jumbo so my apologies to real physicists everywhere :D!

Steve leaves with the last of the things Nancy knows her mother would turn her nose up at, and she waves from her window until his car is out of sight.

The last of the things that remind her family of the week no one’s talked about for months.

She can’t go to Steve’s because that’s where…

She swallows.

But she can’t stay here, either. She doesn’t want to remember, and she doesn’t want to forget. It’s stifling, this in between place she’s landed herself in.

She feels guilty at how angry she is. At having no bodies to bury. At the sound of children playing downstairs only a month later as if nothing...when she…

At herself for even thinking that. At herself for Barb.

She packs the last of her clothes into her smallest suitcase, and her eyes light on a picture of Jonathan and Steve, standing together by a bonfire. One _she_ had taken with Jonathan’s camera and coveted. She smiles because Mom won’t touch her wall, she knows. It’s organized, crisp pink lines on cream coloured slab. California will be brighter.

That’s not the picture she takes.

Her eyes meet Barb’s in Polaroid brown, and her jaw sets. She snatches the picture from the board and folds it in half.

Her mom knocks on the door.

“Ready, sweetie?”

_Ready._

* * *

Pasadena is a slow thirty hours west that not even car games and the occasional revival minister across the waves can quicken. Mike sleeps through most of it, cheek pressed against his small radio that won’t receive anything from his friends this far out.

Maybe he’s not looking for them.

Nancy unfolds the picture in her pocket and stares.

* * *

Her dorm was as small as the pamphlet promised and quiet too.

No one, save Mike (thanks again to that stupid ill-thought promise), knew about her plans after Caltech. What she was really doing here, why she had chosen _this_ school so far removed from what she knew. That's how she wanted it.

No need for Steve Harrington or Jonathan Byers to run to her rescue. She started this mess. She needed to clean it up.

Still, a little indulgence wouldn't _kill_ her, she thinks, pulling out the mixtape Jonathan had handed her before the long drive west. The quiet might.

* * *

Nancy reads every night, until her eyes tire, and she can see the small changes in her face. Her mom says she’s not getting enough Vitamin D and sends her an entire carton of Sunny Delight. All this despite Nancy’s protestations that the drink is mostly sugar, and there are _real_ orange juice stalls that she passes on her _morning run_ , thanks, Mom. Still, she supposes it’s the thought that counts and, away from home, her mom seems far more thoughtful.

She gets a few weird postcards from Jonathan that she eventually realizes aren't from places he's visiting but are sort of...art projects. She keeps every one tied up with a ribbon Steve sent with his latest present, a small, green monstrous looking plush he probably won rather than bought and likely sent as a joke. She likes it anyway and named it Slimer (because despite her most fervent attempts to avoid falling in with any well-meaning group of friends, she was still sat in front of a screen to watch other scientists work through a movie Mike surprisingly detested for all his love of the fantastic).

As if summoned by thought, Steve picks that moment to call. She only knows its him because her mom never calls after nine, unless it’s an emergency, and she _refuses_ to think about that scenario yet.

“Steve?”

“You always know it’s me.”

“I told you, I’m a mind reader.”

Her joke is met with silence. _I suppose, after you’ve had a run in with an actual psychic the joke isn’t so funny..._

“I'm quitting.”

She sighs. She’s heard the speech a thousand times. Steve hates his job, he hates his dad, he hates Hawkins. The last two aren’t true, but it makes him feel better to say it. She skips to the end.

“And what are you going to do?”

“I'm joining the force.”

She blinks. “The force?” _That_ was new. “The...police force?”

“Yeah!” Now he sounds excited. “Hop’s given me the thumbs up! Well, he says he can't stop me at least.”

“Glowing praise.” She smiles then realizes Steve really _will_ quit his job. “Steve, what about your parents?”

“Oh yeah, Dad’s pissed,” he scoffs. The same way he had...was it almost a year ago now? “Hey, one more reason to find a new place, right?”

_Screw em, right?_

“True.”

She hates that house.

“Mike's good. I think he hit a growth spurt.” Steve must have heard something in her tone. “I swear he's up to my shoulder now.”

“Really? I would say that now Lucas can stop teasing him, but I doubt it.”

She wasn't going to thank him again for checking on Mike or remind him _again_ that she knew how her brother was, _thanks,_ they spoke more often than she and Steve. It made him feel...useful probably.

“I think you're going to make a great cop,” she says, out of nowhere.

“Thanks, Nance.” Steve’s quieter, but he sounds genuinely pleased. He sighs. “I miss you.”

“I miss you too,” she says automatically and feels guilty. It’s the same way she says it to her mother or grandmother sometimes. _Miss you, talk to you later, love you, mean it._ She tries again, putting a little more force behind the words. “I do, actually. But I'm glad I don't have a lot of time out here to think about it.”

“About me?”

“You, Jonathan, Hawkins,” she admits. “About everything.”

“Good thing I called to remind you then.” He seems to understand, and she’s glad he’s not upset. “It's nice to be missed. Don't want you forgetting the little guys out in the middle of nowhere.”

She laughs. “You're an idiot, Steve Harrington.”

He's quiet for a moment. “You're beautiful, Nancy Wheeler.”

Thinking about her unwashed hair, the red in her eyes, and the two day old stain on her coat (that she’d forgotten to hang by the door _again_ ), she quietly disagrees. But it was nice that someone thinks so anyway, and she had a feeling Steve would be hard to convince otherwise no matter what she was wearing.

“Goodnight, Steve.”

“G’night.”

They hang up, and Nancy lets her gaze linger on Slimer. She used _Ghostbusters_ in her latest MWI proposal (which her professor lovingly referred to as pure codswallop and shot down accordingly). A few of her classmates had latched on to _Terminator_ and the possibilities of time travel. None of _them_ had ever been a flea, she thought. Or...she hoped. For their sakes.

Nancy didn't care, either way. About the grades or which movie a freshman used to get an easy A in Waves and Quantum Mechanics. People were starting to notice her. The _right_ people. The ones who mattered.

* * *

Jonathan doesn't send a postcard for a while, and she would worry, but she's so...distracted. Her base classes aren’t as difficult as the months edge into November, but her Physics Laboratory runs well into the night sometimes (depending on the simulation and how generous her professor feels).

Then she does get one, and it takes her a full week to notice the return address.

She curses. Jonathan doesn't have a dedicated number, and she doesn't want to scare Joyce if...if nothing.

She calls Steve instead.

“Hello, Steve here-”

“Has Jonathan dropped out of NYU?”

“...what?”

“Jonathan, Steve! Is he at home?” She wishes she could reach through the phone and shake his perfect teeth out of his mouth.

“Nance? Hello, good to hear from you too.” His laugh is a little nervous. “Now slow down, and tell me what's _wrong.”_

“He sent me a postcard. Jonathan,” she explains, more calmly. “From Hawkins.”

Steve breathes out a relieved sigh that doesn't relieve Nancy at all.

“Yeah, he was here. Thanksgiving, remember? Some people _enjoy_ spending time with their family on the holidays. Weird, I know.”

 _Then_ she breathes. Of course. Thanksgiving.

“What'd he say about your uniform?”

“Oh, Nance!” He laughs, and she has to pull the receiver away from her ear. “You should've seen the look on his face!”

“That good?”

“Why don't you ask him? He has a number now,” he says casually, but she knows it takes a lot. “Should be on your postcard.”

She looks, and he's right. Scribbled at the bottom in bright blue is a number she doesn't recognize.

“Thanks, Steve.”

“Seriously, _don’t_ mention it.”

* * *

“Jonathan?”

“...Nancy?”

“You sound so shocked.” She laughs. “Did you give me your number as a joke?”

“Uh no,” he says slowly, and she can hear him settling somewhere. It must be, she checks her watch (a bright pink monstrosity from Steve that she absolutely adores), eight o’clock in New York. Maybe he goes to bed earlier than she does. “No.” It’s silent for a moment, both of them thinking of what to say. “How are you?”

“Oh, you know, busy. Studying.” She flips a few pages of her book and shuts it. She’s finished taking notes on the next three chapters anyway. “You?”

“Yeah. Busy. Studying.”

Wow. Maybe he didn’t need a phone. His postcards were far more revealing.

“How was your first official showing?”

“Great,” he sounds a little more excited at this, then adds, a little nervously, “I think. A lot of people showed up, and I had some stuff bought. That’s not really how the grading works though.”

“NYU sounds so strange.”

“Stranger than Hawkins?”

She laughs. “There is _no place_ stranger than Hawkins.”

“Poor Steve,” Jonathan snorts. “Anyway photography’s a strange skill.”

“Has to be more interesting than business.” She still doesn’t know how someone like Jonathan sits through even the most basic business courses. Then she remembers he has plans for after college too.

“You coming home for Christmas?”

“Yeah,” she says on a sigh, sitting up on her bed. “Yeah, of course. You’ll be there too, right?”

“Eleven hours, there and back.”

“Oh boo hoo, try thirty.” She laughs.

“Touche.”

“Well, I’m glad we’ll all be home. It’ll be good to see Steve.” She chooses to say her next words first, knowing he won’t, tracing the scar along her palm. “And I miss you.”

“Oh.” On the East coast, she hopes he’s tracing a similar mark. “I miss you too, Nancy.”

She falls asleep with her phone beside her ear, wishing they’d talked more or sooner. She'd been so focused on working for the dead that she forgot she was working for the living too.

* * *

Nancy works her way through deadlines that seem impossible, turning down any notion of flying out to visit her family before December despite her dad’s badgering (or maybe because of it).

Walking out of her last exam of the semester feeling smarter than the test is Christmas come early.

“Miss Wheeler?” A cough. “Nancy Wheeler?”

Nancy turns to a man in a suit and definitely not one of her professors. They all wear less stifling clothes out here.

“That’s me.”

He holds up a stack of papers that look vaguely familiar. “I took a look through your latest proposal on many-worlds.” He raises an eyebrow. “Interesting stuff.”

“Thanks.”

He continues to stare at her, and maybe he expects her to say more. But she’s learned how to deal with the men here. She stares back and hopes her face is as blank as she wills it to be. Finally he holds out a card, stark white against the black of his suit.

“May I have a moment of your time?”

 _DARPA, Employment Manager,_ it reads.

 _The right people_ , she thinks.


	3. Steve

It’s only after Jonathan and Nancy leave that Steve realizes they might be his only friends now.

He hadn’t planned it that way, if you can plan to make friends, but Hawkins is small. Everyone who was going was gone, and the people who stayed like Tommy and Carol were people he had already burned bridges with and had no desire to build another towards.

There are a few people he still talks to from high school that stuck around, working for their parents like Steve, but no one as earnest as Nancy or as interesting as Jonathan. No one as kind as either of them, if such a thing were possible.

More importantly there was no one who _knew_. He would make some joke about impossible things, and there was no one to laugh away the awkward tension. Mostly people just stared at him. So he stopped talking about it altogether unless he was around the kids or Hopper (who usually stared too, but in a way that Steve hoped was fatherly and fond).

Nancy does well away from Hawkins, and the memory of her guilt over Barb, Steve thinks. She doesn't sound like her old self, but she sounds...determined. And she loves school.

One day a postcard from New York arrives, and something in Steve’s chest settles.

Jonathan’s pictures are...fantastic when he’s actually forced to see them every few weeks. Whatever peace he’s found in New York has been good for his photography, that’s for sure. And his letters, while brief, are edged with more happiness than Steve would expect out of the elder Byers.

Steve watches out for Mike, kind and sometimes too lonely for his age, and gives Will lifts home on the long road (because Cornwallis, or _Mirkwood_ ,is still too fresh to be forgotten). Sometimes Joyce or Karen offer him dinner. Sometimes he accepts.

He hates his job, hates going home more when he knows now that it’s a grave.

Another postcard comes through, this one orange with garish yellow words painted along the front: _You can do more_.

* * *

Steve stares at the application on Hopper’s desk. His dad isn't going to be happy.

“You know it's not all monster hunting.” Hop rubs a hand across his brow. “It’s mostly giving people tickets and cleaning up the streets. Literally.”

“I know that,” Steve insists, leaning forward a little. He knows what Hawkins is like. He’s lived here his whole life. A spot of strange isn’t going to change it (he thinks, hopes). “Anything is better than working with my dad.”

“If you’re doing this to run away from--”

“No,” Steve cuts him off. He’s _not_ running away. “I just want to help people,” he says, tone gentling at the chief’s pinched expression. “I just want to help.”

Hopper sighs. “This job's going to kill that optimistic outlook you’ve got, Harrington.”

“Really?” He smiles, and it must be something he doesn’t do a lot of recently because it hurts his cheeks. “I have a job?”

Hopper falls back in his chair. “You gotta pass all the examinations, but after that,” he shrugs, “I can't really say no, can I?”

Steve practically leaps forward, shaking his hand with a vigor the chief doesn’t seem to appreciate. “I won't let you down sir.”

“No,” he says sternly, “you won't.”

* * *

Chief Hopper was right, and the most interesting thing that happens to Steve once he’s in uniform is when he busts Tommy H for reef. He watches Carol berate him as they leave the station together and wonders how they never get bored of one another.

Nancy is never boring, even when all she wants to talk about is some mathematical equation she’s lost her head in. Neither is Jonathan, come to think of it. He’s written about some of the weirdest clubs Steve never hopes to stumble into, and he’s still a little odd, but boring is never a word Steve would put to him.

The kids like Steve. Will and Mike are both nice kids (Will especially so, which wasn’t surprising, but did make Steve feel obscenely guilty all over again), but it only took one try at D&D before he realized he was better off waiting for his old friends to come home than to hang out with a bunch of almost high schoolers. They trust Hopper more, and after everything that happened, he can’t blame them. Plus Hop’s been hanging around the Byers more often than Steve has under the pretense of ‘just looking out’. He doesn’t want to consider where _that’s_ going, but he wonders what Jonathan will think about it when he gets back.

* * *

His last postcard had a number scrawled along the edge.

“Byers! Did you finally get a phone?”

“What? No, this is the number for the photo lab…,” he trails off. “And I put it on your postcard. Fuck.”

“Language, Jonathan,” Steve sing-songs. “Still, lucky I caught you huh?”

“Maybe next time try ‘ _hello’_ instead of ‘Byers.’ If my professor thinks I’m taking personal calls in here, she’s going to-”

“Oh, a _she_ professor, eh?”

“Shut up, Harrington.”

“S’good to hear your growl, man.” Steve chuckles, crossing his arms under the chord.

“Yeah, you too.”

"Sorry, I’ll be _polite_ next time, promise,” Steve apologizes because it’s gotten him a surprisingly long way with Jonathan. “Anyway, I’m not really...this isn’t a social call, actually.”

All at once Jonathan is serious and ready to talk. “What’s wrong?”

He’s ready for something to be wrong. To come home, Steve knows that. Knows how hard it was for him to leave. Why is he bothering him with this?

“Will’s first day of school, erm, high school was today.”

“Yeah, I talked to him,” Jonathan says slowly, waiting for the other shoe.

“How did he seem,” Steve’s throat dries, “to you?”

Jonathan is quiet, thinking probably. “Tired. But that’s normal right? Mom said that’s normal,” he repeats as though reassuring himself. “You’re there. Does he still look pale?”

“No more than usual. He just seemed...off on the drive home.”

“Off? Are these your heightened cop senses speaking?”

If it weren’t for the teasing tone, he would have bristled. “Sorry, don’t know why I’m worrying.”

“No, it’s good.” Jonathan rushed to put his mind at ease. “I mean, Mom says he’s doing good so...that’s good. But there’s only so many times a day she can look in on him _and_ take care of herself. I’m glad there’s someone else there.”

“Hop’s there too,” Steve says with a smirk, because he knows it makes Jonathan uncomfortable.

“Yeah, yeah, don’t remind me.” He can imagine the tinge of green on Jonathan’s cheeks and chuckles.

“Hey, he’s decent.”

Jonathan sighs. “I know, it’s not about Hop.” There’s the sound of a door opening, and a startled breath on the other end of the phone. “Look I got to go. Call me if...call you later.”

“Tell your professor you’ve been naughty, and you need--hello? Jonathan?” Steve laughs at the dial tone.

* * *

Steve can afford a _house_ now (barely), and while it’s close to Mirkwood, it’s not on the nice side of town where his parents live.

They’re still trying to convince him to _at least_ consider moving to Indianapolis. Hell, they’ll even pay for his mortgage for the first year.

“You should take it.”

“Nancy, what the hell?”

“I’m just saying!” She laughs. “You can tough it out for a year, then sell and move back! Win-win!”

“You’re ruthless.”

“I’m _practical_ ,” she insists.

“I don’t...want to leave Hawkins,” he says after they’ve talked about school and Mike and Jonathan, all the usual things.

“Yes, you do.” She sighs. “You say so all the time. _I hate Hawkins, Indiana_ ,” she mimics in what is _definitely_ not his voice. “ _Get me out of here_.”

“I grew up here.” He falls back on the bed. “I’m allowed to hate it, and _also_ never want to leave.”

“Yeah, because you secretly love it.”

He smiles. It’s not really a secret, but that isn’t what scares him about being a cop in a big city.

He loves feeling like he’s _doing_ something. He knows almost every name in Hawkins, and some part of him feels like, if the list is short enough, he can keep every person safe. Every tally checked.

He can’t imagine protecting a behemoth like Indianapolis.

He doesn’t tell Nancy this. Maybe when she’s here at Christmas.

And he can tell her, too, that he sometimes patrols the edge of the woods when he gets off his regular shift. Hopper’s caught him at it, but only because he’s doing the same goddamn thing.

No, he couldn’t leave Hawkins yet.

* * *

On one of these unsanctioned patrols, he hears crying.

 _Probably an animal,_ he thinks, feeling no less frightened and following the sound into the woods anyway.

He’s close to his parents’ home, and his legs are aching when he finally stops walking. The crying is incessant, and the same volume no matter where he walks. It’s not as though he’s being followed...more like he’s walking towards something always one step ahead of him. He looks around himself, flashlight landing on nothing but trees.

The crying stops.

Steve lowers his flashlight, circles the tree and comes face to face with the barrel of a gun.

And while said gun is attached to the hand of Jonathan Byers that is, understandably, not Steve’s first conscious thought.

His first conscious thought is _Oh no, I’m going to die_.

Steve jumps as high as his heart rate. “Jesus!”

“Steve?” Jonathan lowers the weapon. “What the hell?”

“What the hell, _what the hell_!” Steve slaps the gun in Jonathan’s hand. “ _Do you even have a permit for that_?”

Jonathan flushes a little too guiltily for Steve’s liking, and Steve bends over, hands on his knees, and tries to calm his breathing.

“You okay?”

“No!” He stands, running a hand through his hair. “Yes. I thought I heard...something.”

“Something?” Jonathan looks around, raising his gun a little.

“Crying,” Steve elaborates, motioning for him to lower his arm. “Must have been a deer. Or…”

“Do you think?” Jonathan raises a brow.

He knows what Jonathan's thinking.

_Eleven._

“I don't know.” He turns his flashlight off, clipping it to his belt. There’s enough moonlight to see by here. “I don’t know what she sounded like.”

Jonathan nods, looking a little helpless.

“What are you doing out here, anyway.”

“Following you.” He nods at the flashlight. “Weird lights in the woods? Bad sign.”

“So you decided to check it out on your own. _Smart_.” Jonathan stares at him until Steve retraces his steps. His friend sees the moment he makes the connection, grinning like a cat. “Shut up, I’m a _cop_ now. I can do this sort of thing. You’re a civvie.”

“A _civvie_?” Jonathan’s upper lip curls. “Come on.”

“ _You_ come on, you almost shot me in the face!”

“I did not. You’re so dramatic.”

Steve can’t argue with that. He sighs, the adrenaline finally draining from his system and leaving him tired. “My parents are in Mexico, but I still have a key to their place if they haven’t changed the locks.” He looks down at this uniform, dirty below the knees and a tear at the thigh from a stray branch he tripped into. “Hopefully they kept some of my clothes.”

* * *

“You’re a long way from New York tonight.” Steve flips through his old closet, seemingly untouched since he left with half his things.

“Thanksgiving,” Jonathan says as though it’s obvious. “I was going to call you tomorrow.”

Steve whips out an old favorite that probably doesn’t fit him anymore and turns to see Jonathan at his room’s window. Thinking about Nancy, probably.

His suspicions are confirmed when Jonathan asks, “Have you heard from her lately?”

“About as often as I hear from you.” Steve thinks about _surprise_ visits that end with a gun in his face. “You really need your own phone, Byers.”

Jonathan nods as if maybe he's _finally_ considering it. “You have some cool albums,” and Steve notices he’s not looking at the pool or the woods but the old records he kept under the window. No record player in the new house, unfortunately. “Do you mind?”

“Knock yourself out.” Steve waves him forward and undoes his belt, carefully setting it on his old bedside drawer next to a bottle of half-used hairspray he left behind.

He can hear the music filtering through the shower from the connecting room, and it helps knowing someone's still there. Jonathan's been through this.

His old clothes are a little snug, but less so than he thought. When he walks back in, Jonathan is holding up his uniform. His face looks like he ate something sour. “I still can’t believe you’re an actual cop now.”

Steve had written as much to Jonathan, even provided photographic evidence, but he’d never asked his feelings on the matter. “Problem?”

“No just...surprised.”

“You were right.” Steve holds his hands in the shape of a rectangle, about the size of a postcard. One of the first he'd received. “I can do more.”

Jonathan’s face is blank for a few seconds then brightens to a dull red. It’s a different red than when he’s angry, Steve notices.

“I remember that.” Jonathan covers his nose and mouth with his hand. “It was a cheesy motivational piece we had to do for an early installation at the school. I mostly sent it to get rid of it. God, I hated it.”

“So naturally, I loved it.” Jonathan drops his hand looking a little shocked. Steve backpedals as quickly as he can, reaching forward to snatch up his uniform. “Apparently I’m susceptible to cheesy motivation.”

“Who knew?” Jonathan quirks a grin.

“Walk you home?”

“I think I can find my way, _officer_.” He snorts.

“It is my duty as an upholder of the law to escort private citizens in times of crisis.” He adds, a little more seriously, “Basically unless you want to spend the night with me at my parental's casa, I'm not letting you back in those woods alone.”

Jonathan stares over his shoulder at the window, and this time Steve knows he’s looking at the woods.

“Only a cop for what? A few months? And already you've gone mad with power.”

Steve points to the door. “March, Byers.”

* * *

Thanksgiving break ends, and Steve's nightmares come back. Despite all of his protests that he's a _cop now,_ Jonathan makes him keep his gun. For safety, you know.

Besides, Jonathan doesn’t _actually_ have a permit.

* * *

He doesn't tell Nancy about the crying. Maybe he's afraid it'll remind her of Barb. He does end up giving her Jonathan's number and wonders why it feels...a little liberating.

The next time he talks to her he realizes why. Jonathan and Nancy never should have _stopped_ talking, even if it wasn’t on purpose. Regardless of the odd circumstances that brought them together, strangely he saw how they fit together best when they were on separate shores.

If Nancy was the Earth, then Jonathan was the moon, keeping the tides steady, and Steve was a satellite pinging in both their orbits trying to communicate and understand what the _hell_ was going on. One step behind.

He really needed to stop letting Mrs. Wheeler rope him into watching _General Hospital_.

Shaking himself from his thoughts, he picks up his shopping bags. His budget’s tight for the first time in years, but on the top of the pile are two small gifts. A scaled down _Discovery_ space shuttle for Nancy and some kind of holographic lens for Jonathan. He’s pretty sure Mike will like the shuttle more than Nance and that the lens is a gimmick, but if he knows them (and he likes to think he does), they’ll love the thought anyway.


	4. Cover the Lovers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Next week, Nancy’s taking her gentle hands and teasing smirk back to Pasadena, and Jonathan’s soft, romantic heart will be in New York.
> 
> And Steve will still be here in Hawkins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the lovely feedback <3 Please note the increase in rating and enjoy!

Will _knows_ his crush on Steve Harrington is absolutely ridiculous.

He may have accepted that he doesn’t like girls (for the most part, anyway, because there are still magazines he can’t help but stare too long at over Dustin’s shoulder), but he doesn’t have to go straight to accepting _this_.

Because despite how nice Steve is, driving him home or sneaking him ice cream from McDonald’s when it’s pretty clear he had a lousy day, or how amazing Steve’s hair looks especially now with a cop hat....

Do cop hats have a name? He’d have to ask Hopper.

Anyway, _despite all of that_ , it’s still Steve Harrington who’s old enough to be...well, his brother. And a cop. Steve who doesn’t understand anything Will and his friends like (their one, disastrous attempt at teaching him D&D out of pity more than anything tells him that much). Will knows that isn’t everything when it comes to….

He swallows.

 _Liking_ a person, but he’s sure it means _something_. Having things in common or whatever.

“Whatever,” he says, out loud. Steve’s probably still dating Nancy, even though Mike’s sure he isn’t.

Will has yet to think of a way to ask Jonathan about that without him prying any further into _why_ he might be curious. He’s pretty sure his brother would burn through every perception check in their games, regardless of the luck of the dice.

Anyway, it’s not like Steve dating someone makes it any easier because he has, by some strange turn of events, become Jonathan’s best friend. This means not only are there a ton of photos of him scattered around Jonathan's room, so Will can't avoid seeing him even when he’s _not_ there, but Joyce treats him like another son in the absence of his older brother. So Will keeps his mouth shut.

Which would be a heck of a lot easier if Steve would stop showing up at his house unannounced.

“Your mom’s not here?”

Like so.

“She finally trusts me to stay by myself while she takes a few extra shifts.” Will refuses to take his eyes off the sketch for his geography homework to look at Steve. That way lies madness and perfect hair.

“Ah, high school.” Steve takes a deep breath, drawing a chair out and flipping it around to sit backwards in it. “Age of freedom. Meet any cute girls?”

Will snorts. “No.”

Steve grabs one of the pencils from Will’s case and twirls it aimlessly. “Oh, uh, cute boys?”

Will stares at him, hard, the way he's seen Jonathan do, and Steve's eyes go a little wide.

“No,” he says and goes back to shading Pangaea. A thought occurs. “What about you?”

“Me?”

“Yeah. Maybe if you got a girlfriend, you’d stop hanging around here so much.”

When Will looks up, Steve’s eyebrows are at his hairline. “I see you're finally picking up the Byers’ charming bite.”

“Sorry…” Will sets his pencil down, and Steve leans across the table to study the final product.

“Your family’s so artistic.” He nods once in what looks like approval.

Will half-turns at the sound of Scuffer pressing his nose into the small hole at the bottom of their door. Steve and the otterhound regard one another with wary tenseness before Scuffer approaches to sniff his hand. Satisfied, he settles under Will's feet.

"Maybe I should get a pet.” Steve’s eyes follow Scuffer’s path under the table. “They're just a lot of responsibility you know?”

“Scuffer takes care of himself until dinner time.” Will shrugs. “Do you _want_ a pet?”

“Maybe?” Steve leverages himself fully into his seat again with an elbow. “It's the next step, right? First the house now a dog?”

Will wants to say, _Why are you asking me?_ What comes out is, “You don't like dogs.”

“Everyone likes dogs.” Steve laughs, and Will leaves the table to put his empty glass of chocolate milk into the sink. “What?” Steve asks, even though Will hasn’t said _anything_. “I don't hate them. I'm just not...used to them.”

Will stares at Steve across the counter. The man is looking at Scuffer with some amount of suspicion. “You shouldn't like things just because people tell you you're supposed to.”

“Fine.” Steve looks disgruntled. Accepting the advice of an almost 14-year-old can't be easy, even if the words aren’t technically Will’s own. “A cat or a goldfish or something. Your brother isn't coming back today, is he?”

Will shakes his head. “Tomorrow night. Late, probably.”

“I was going to be here when he got in, but--”

The radio on Steve's shoulder crackles to life, and he picks it up, waving it rather dismally at Will.

“Harrington? What’s your 10-20?”

Will doesn't have time to decipher the look Steve shoots him before the man is turned away and pressing the call button. “Harrington here, I’m over at the Byers residence.”

“Byers? What the hell are you doing out there?”

“The chief’s at court with the investigation into that research lab, you remember?”

“Yeah, weird stuff.”

 _You don’t know the half of it_ , Will thinks, and Steve rolls his eyes as though they share some secret agreement. “He asked me to...look in.”

Ah, that explained the look. _Guilt_. Will crosses his arms. Can’t he be left alone for an hour without someone over his shoulder?

Evidently not.

“Anyway, everything’s all clear over here, so what is it you need?”

“We got a 10-45 out on Oberlin.” Will relaxes because the voice on the other end sounds too amused for whatever’s wrong to be anything too terrible.

Steve sighs, his expression pinched. “Okay, okay, er, 10-4.”

“What's a 10-45?” Will leans his crossed arms onto the counter.

“Animal carcass. And in the snow too, so…” Steve sets his hat on his head (or his hair, Will supposes, because there’s no way the hat actually manages to touch his head with that much product between it and the fabric) and pulls another, disgusted face. “Gross.”

“Hey, at least it won't smell bad!”

“I like the enthusiasm!” Steve stands, pointing at him and smiling now. “Tell your brother I'm sorry I have to work.”

“He won't care.” Will watches the smile fall from Steve’s face, and he backpedals as quick as he can. “I mean he won't mind! He’ll probably be really sleepy anyway. I'm not waiting up for him, so…”

He doesn’t know why he’s trying so hard to make Steve feel better about this. The guy probably wasn’t _that_ hurt.

But Jonathan doesn’t have a lot of friends. He deserves to keep the ones he has.

“Thanks, little man.” Will ducks the hand that reaches out to give him a noogie. “You'll tell him I dropped by, though?”

“Yeah, sure.” Will waves him off and, defiantly, doesn’t look up as Steve leaves the house.

He hopes he and Mike aren't that clingy after high school.

* * *

Jonathan’s spent a good portion of his first semester at NYU eating way too much takeout and living the expression of ‘try new things’. His dorm has a kitchen, but the stove’s been busted since before he came, and it's been neatly converted into a second lounge area at this point.

Besides there's an _amazing_ Thai place right beside the studio he goes to after school hours. He's missed his mom’s...interesting dishes, but he’s been squirreling away the restaurant’s condiments for weeks to sneak to Hawkins. Maybe he'll hide them in the _actual_ spice rack. Mom never looks there.

His trying new things extends past the realm of food. He wouldn't say he _enjoys_ clubs, but he likes taking pictures in them. Outside, too, depending on how the night turns out. He's not sure if it's the city or the place itself, but no one seems to mind him or the dozen other photographers that flock to life in darkness like moths. Some people even pose. These aren’t the ones he puts in his gallery. It feels too much like an invasion of a moment (though he has used them as inspiration for a few papers on human expression).

He’s managed to avoid the massive keggers in the dorm, though he keeps running into a few of the people who hang out in his hall during them. One of the girls, Christina (“Everyone calls me Cebe. You know? Like from Out of the Blue?”) is the closest thing he has to a friend in his new city outside of the people in his major, who all cling together in class discussing things he _never_ thought he’d get to talk about with living, breathing people (things like shutter speed and the best tripods for unstable terrain).

Cebe keeps trying to convince him he should get a tattoo. Or a piercing. “Or both!” She had pointed her beer at him with great enthusiasm.

In the end what he got was a stable job at a restaurant. Stable for New York anyway.

It was easy for someone who'd been working for the last few years to fall into a job especially in a city where an actor or artist is always ready to leave for their next gig. His boss was a hardass, but she seemed to appreciate what she called Jonathan’s ‘midwestern work ethic’. He's still not sure if it's a compliment.

He hadn’t bought his boss or Cebe something for Christmas and feels vaguely guilty about it on the drive home to Hawkins. There’s a present for Nancy and Steve, and the rest of his money he’s spent on gifts for his mom and Will.

Will Byers. The boy who came back to life.

They’d made a splash in the local papers with the investigation, but it didn’t go anywhere towards explaining away the bigger question of why. Why Will? Why Hawkins? And the lab wasn't being particularly forthcoming on that front. Then, why would they?

Most people accepted the simple answer of ‘easy prey,’ but for the ones who didn't...how do you explain away questions when your only answers involved other worlds and monsters?

Short answer: you don't and hope the silence leaves people to fill in the rest themselves.

Jonathan had been shielded from the worst of _that_ in the few months before college, with Will still in and out of the hospital for tests and the high schoolers’ attention more on themselves as it was. Or maybe it was that everyone was too laser-focused on his strange, new friendship with Nancy and Steve. From what he's heard, Will isn't so lucky. But he came out different from the Upside Down. Hardened was the word maybe. Not to the point of being callous, no, not cruel or angry. Something like…

Something like he knew what he was made of.

Jonathan's proud of Will, but he can't help to look at him and think only of what the time in that place cost him.

He pops a tape into the deck to drown out the directions his thoughts have turned.

Five minutes later, lips a thin line, he puts in a different cassette, one Cebe lent him. Some new band she’d caught on Letterman years ago and swore was the next big thing.

He won’t let what happened ruin The Clash, but he doesn’t have to wallow in it either.

Besides, these R.E.M. dudes aren't so bad.

* * *

Just after one in the morning, there's a tapping on the window of Jonathan's old bedroom.

When he opens the blinds, it's to the form of Steve in that dumb new hat, now covered in powdery white snow. He flips the lock and pushes up the window, letting in a biting harsh breeze and flakes that melt as soon as they touch the top of Jonathan’s hands.

“Did you seriously walk here in this weather?”

Steve shakes his head. “Drove. Parked out back.” He claps his hands twice. “I was on patrol.”

“Yeah, Will said.”

Jonathan hadn’t expected his family to be out of bed when he pulled into the driveway around eleven. But awake they had been and sitting in front of the television preparing to swarm him with hugs as soon as he walked through the door. Questions and small talk too, as though they had never spoken while he was away. Eventually the hour proved too much, and they'd all drifted off to their own rooms.

Where Steve is pressed against his windowsill now. Jonathan steps aside to let him in.

Steve takes the invitation, heaving up on the ledge and pulling half of his upper body into the room. “Then I went to you know...perimeter check.”

Right. Steve's sweep of the woods. Guess he was still on those. “Anything going on?”

“No crying tonight, but I think I was right about the animals. Dead ones popping up all along the highway.” His teeth are chattering as he falls onto Jonathan’s carpet and springs to his feet. “One in my parents’ back yard. Scared the shit out of my mom.”

“Something suspicious in your backyard?” Jonathan crosses his arms. “I know the feeling.”

Steve turns to close the window, dusting himself off as he goes and leaving a trail of wet patches as snow melts from his boots. “Sorry didn't want to wake the family.”

“S’okay.” Jonathan peeks out of the window over his shoulder. “Pretty sure you can't drive back to yours in this anyway. I have pajamas in there.” He points to a drawer and turns when Steve starts undressing before bothering to check if there's anything that'll fit him. “Want something warm? I think we've got hot chocolate.”

Steve makes a vaguely approving noise behind Jonathan’s back and that’s enough to send him out of the room and wandering in the direction of the kitchen.

If he thought postcards and a few phone calls were enough to understand his own friendship with Steve, he was dead wrong. He never _got_ Steve. Overly enthusiastic and too quick to touch.

 _Simplify, Jonathan. Pretend it's…._ He watches the mug of water spin in listless circles and steam the inside of the microwave door. _Pretend it's framed._

The image of Steve tapping on his window, beside his bed, words reaching out and eyes looking away. Lonely.

Jonathan opens the door of the microwave. This is a bad exercise. The image of Steve in freeze frame doesn't sit well with his memories of high school and the cheery voice over the phone. It's too incongruous. Not something he's not saying, just something Jonathan's overlooked.

It doesn't matter, he thinks. Right now, he's a cold friend who needs a warm drink, and that's an easy fix.

When he comes back with his drink, Steve is flipping through a pile of photos that are laid out on the record player, a mess of still faces on sound. Jonathan would feel self conscious if much of their exchanges in the previous months hadn't included as much.

Steve exchanges one of the photos he's holding for the hot chocolate and sets the rest aside to grasp the mug with both hands.

“When's that from?”

Jonathan glances at the photo in his hand. It's Steve, who had been standing across from Nancy at the time, but he's not looking at her. He's looking over his shoulder and seems to be ruminating over something particularly vexsome.

“One of the spring football games last year.”

“Huh,” Steve gets that same considering look. “You should have said hi.”

Jonathan shrugs. Privately he's glad he didn't. The last spring of high school had been...a weird point in their not-quite-friendship.

“Can I keep it?”

“Uh,” Jonathan laughs; he can't help it. Steve is in his bedroom, wearing _his_ old pajamas, and asking to keep a photo Jonathan took of him. It's surreal. “Sure, Steve.”

“Shut up.” Steve must have realized where his thoughts have gone. He reaches out to punch him lightly on the shoulder and sets his mug down on the bedside table. “Guess I'll take the couch.” He weaves between Jonathan and the bed towards the door.

“Just sleep in here, there's enough room.” Jonathan reaches under the bed and gropes around for his portable cassette player.

“You getting fresh, Byers?” Steve has an eyebrow raised, but Jonathan notices he hasn't moved closer to the door.

“Sure, Harrington,” Jonathan says, deadpan, and tosses the player onto the bed. “Sleep on the floor, for all I care. Just trying to be hospitable, save you the trouble of sleeping in the same room as a monster that crawled out of my ceiling.”

Steve stares at Jonathan's door. “Oh.”

“Didn't think of that?” Jonathan practically falls onto the bed, pulling the cassette player towards his chest. He forgot how exhausted he was. “Bet the bed looks pretty cozy now.”

Steve doesn't answer. Just lifts a corner of the covers and crawls into the bed beside Jonathan. They're a polite distance apart, but Steve is obviously spooked enough that he's turned his back towards the door, which leaves him staring straight at Jonathan.

“Still having nightmares?” Jonathan asks after an uncomfortable moment.

“The usual rotation. You?”

“I don't really dream.”

“Never? That's weird.”

Steve seems less jittery, but his eyes are wide open. Jonathan tries closing his first. _Lead by example._

“Bet you could enter into a sleep study.”

“Go to sleep, Steve.” Jonathan puts the headphones on his chest over Steve's ears and presses the play button, keeping his eyes resolutely shut.

When he cracks an eye open, Steve is breathing evenly, his eyes finally shut. Jonathan lets out a breath and falls asleep.

* * *

“Jonathan? You asleep?”

Jonathan can hear the clatter of Steve lowering his headphones. He doesn't know why he pretends to be asleep. He’s tired, his rational brain argues, and whatever it is can wait until morning.

“I missed you. Is it weird that I missed you?”

Jonathan feels a painful tug behind his ribs and squeezes his eyes more tightly shut in response to the sensation.

When he sees Nancy at the airport tomorrow, he’ll be ecstatic. He’ll want to kiss her as much as he did when he saw her off and the last time they spoke on the phone, when all he could think about was how soft her hair would feel and the comfortable warmth she provided him just by being near.

But in the end, he hadn't bought a phone for _Nancy Wheeler._ He’d bought a phone because _Steve Harrington_ asked him to, and he doesn't want to think about what that means.

So he doesn't and pretends to sleep.

* * *

It’s a 30 hour drive from Pasadena to Hawkins, and there’s no way she’s making that trip again. She considered the sleeper cars of the train, but every flickering light sets her on edge now. She prefers flying the four hours home, landing safe on the Indianapolis airstrip.

Jonathan picks her up from the airport.

Nancy kisses him on the cheek, and he startles. He's never gotten used to their disconsonant idea of personal space.

"Thanks for doing this.” She lets him take one of her bags as she drags the other behind her. “I know Mom appreciates not having to drive in this weather, especially with Holly.”

“No problem.” He grins. “I have a bet with the local authorities on whether or not you got a tan in California. Needed to check for myself.”

“Shut up.” She pushes at his shoulder, and the bag there slips down slightly. He pulls it back up with a breathy laugh. “Who won?”

Jonathan just shakes his head, laughing again, and moves to stand slightly in front of her when someone tries to run between them both. A protective, near-instinctual move he doesn't seem to notice he's done at all.

They don't speak again until they're in his car, focusing on cutting through swaths of people at the Indianapolis airport; home for the holidays like her or grounded for inclimate weather.

“What a miserable way to spend Christmas.” She fastens her seatbelt, watching a rather tall man argue with a bored-looking woman at the ticket counter.

Jonathan leans over the steering wheel to get a glimpse of what she's staring at. “Selling airline tickets or stuck in an airport?”

“Both.”

Nancy presses her hands against the air vents, willing warmth into her icy fingertips. A more upbeat tempo than she's used to hearing plays through the speaker of Jonathan’s car.

“I like them.” She motions to the tape deck.

“Cebe made that one. I told you about her?”

“Tattoo girl?”

He laughs. “Yeah.” His fingers tap against the steering wheel in time to the music. “Her, uh, boyfriend bought her tickets to see them perform down in North Carolina over break. They're touring with The Minutemen.”

Nancy makes a noncommittal noise. “I don't know them. Do you have one yet?”

Jonathan darts a quick glance at her from the corner of his eye. “Do I have one what?”

“Are you seeing anyone?” She grins at the strained look on his face.

“No.”

She smiles wider. They'd been talking on the phone fairly regularly. She would have been a bit put out if he _had_ been seeing someone and had failed to mention it to her.

She waits, patient, but Jonathan doesn’t take the bait. Either he doesn’t care whether she’s still single, or he doesn’t want to seem nosy. Maybe he’s realized the same thing; anything terribly significant she would have mentioned.

Still...

“I’m too busy for anything right now.” She takes a deep breath. “But Steve and I tried phone sex.”

Jonathan’s lips blow out in a sharp laugh, his ears glowing red at the tips. “How did _that_ work?”

“Well depending on the situation, first you-”

“I know _how_ , I meant…” Jonathan’s hands tighten around the wheel and Nancy waits, “Steve sounds like a twelve year old on the phone. No offense.”

“He does.” She covers her mouth to smother her laughter. When she’s calmed, she asks, “How much detail do you want here, Jonathan?” And giggles as his face turns a darker shade of red.

The song continues, and she lets her shoulders fall.

“Tired?” He turns the volume down until she can barely hear the words.

She shakes her head. “Just feel like I can finally relax.”

“Welcome home.” The corner of his lips lift into a smile.

“Hey, Jonathan?”

“Hm?”

“I'm glad you’re making friends.” She nods at the tape deck. Hopes she isn’t stepping over some line. “That you’re not...closing yourself off to people after everything.”

She lays a hand over Jonathan’s.

_Is this okay? Please say this is still okay._

He tenses but doesn't pull away. Nancy smiles and lets out a breath.

* * *

“Steve!”

When Nancy sees Steve for the first time after coming home, she runs into his arms and hugs him tight. She's missed his hugs, the kind that wrap her up fully and lift her slightly off the ground. His policeman’s badge presses into the top of her breast.

“Nice costume,” she says, pulling away, not stepping out of his arms.

“You like?” He raises an eyebrow, his tone suggestive. “Is the cop thing doing it for you?”

She slaps his chest, laughing. “You're an idiot, Steve Harrington.”

There's a neighborhood watch potluck that night, and they've managed to get out of it only by agreeing to babysit Mike and his friends, all this despite the now _teenage_ group’s indignity at needing to be babysat. Once there, Mike, Will, and Dustin are satisfied with all they can eat pizza provided by Steve and Jonathan’s combined wallets, and Lucas is just happy for a change of scenery from Mike’s basement (“He gets weird sometimes and thinks we don’t notice,” he says, leaning against the counter beside Nancy with a plate of pizza and a half finished soda, “I mean, we all miss her but…”)

Nancy, Jonathan, and Steve use the time to exchange gifts.

“Aw, Byers! You remembered I set mine on fire!” Steve’s hoisted a microwave onto his lap and is smiling at it like it’s a puppy. “You shouldn't have...actually, holy shit, how much did this cost? You really shouldn't have.”

Jonathan shrugs. “They were going to throw it out at work.”

“Trash microwave, _nice_.” He smirks, but Nancy hadn’t missed the small exhale of relief when Jonathan spoke. “In that case, let's make some popcorn.”

“Please use the correct power setting this time,” she calls at their retreating backs.

“Yes, let me _please_ ,” she hears Jonathan’s voice drift from the kitchen and laughs.

They watch a movie together, the teens in a heap on the floor in front of the couch, their begrudgingly accepted babysitters upon it. Part way through, Nancy presses herself into Jonathan’s side and tucks her feet under Steve’s thighs. Steve’s pretending to sleep out of spite (he’d suggested they rent _Flashdance_ and had been almost unanimously outvoted), and she sneaks a hand down to squeeze Jonathan’s fingers, his knuckles gathered tight against the shape of her scar.

* * *

The next day, Nancy sneaks into Steve’s room for the first time. There are candles on every shelf.

“Steve Harrington, did you prepare _mood lighting_?” she teases, hopping over a pile of clothes at the foot of his bed.

“Nope,” he steps up to her, hands coming to rest almost lazily at her hips. “I buy candles now.” He pushes his bottom lip out. “Because I'm _poor_.”

She leans up to bite his lip, and he makes a noise of protest that slips into a giggle, then a moan as her arms wrap around his shoulders, and her lips slide down the length of his neck. He pulls away and stares at her solemnly.

"Seriously Nance, do you _know_ how much an electricity bill costs-"

She laughs and kisses him more soundly this time, driving all thoughts of general lighting straight from his head.

* * *

Nancy pulls on one of Steve’s cleaner shirts after, from the pile at the foot of the bed, and rummages around in his bedside drawer for a hair scrunchie before she remembers this isn’t _her_ desk, this is Steve’s. All her hand manages to touch is a space where the lube was, pens he’s probably never used, and...a stack of photographs with writing that looks very familiar.

“Steve, you sap,” she whispers, flipping through Jonathan’s signature method of communication from NYU and trying not to read anything specific beyond ‘Hello’ and ‘Goodbye’.

Steve comes back from the bathroom and blushes when he sees her, far more red than he had in the past hour. She doesn’t know whether to be offended or amused. “Excuse me, ma’am! Opening other people’s mail is a _felony_.”

“I opened your drawer,” she drawls, going through the stack some more, just for show, before rearranging them and putting them back on the desk.

He’s harried now, flipping through them himself. _Steve Harrington, harried_ , she turns on her side and leans her cheek on a hand, still smiling.

“Great. Now I’ll need to find the first one,” he mutters, a little irritated, “gonna be all out of order.”

Even after he’s finished, Steve is still standing there and staring at the photos turned postcards as though they've done him some great ill.

“Hey…” Nancy reaches out, laying a hand on his wrist. “You okay?”

He sits down hard on the bed.

“Nance, I know it’s hard to talk about Barb, but I have to ask you something.”

She swallows. She doesn’t like _thinking_ about Barb most days, dishonorable to her memory as that is, but if it’s to help a friend...

“Shoot.”

“Did you ever, I don’t know. Feel something...different about her?”

She’s quiet for a while trying to figure out what he means.

He rolls his eyes. “Did you ever _like_ her, Nancy? Like,  _like-like_ her.”

Nancy’s eyes bulge. “You’re asking me if I had a crush on Barb?”

Steve opens the drawer and throws the photographs inside, slamming it shut and likely undoing whatever organization system he’d put into place. “Forget it. I’m sorry, Nance. That’s...way out of line.”

Nancy moves to the edge of the bed. “No, it’s,” she purses her lips, “I guess I never thought about it. Or girls really. I’ve known Barb since we were kids. And once I actually started thinking about...things like that, I pretty much only had eyes for you.” She considers this for a moment, “And a few celebrities, but only ones you’d tease me for.”

“Nancy, Nancy!” He holds a hand to his chest, seemingly wounded. “Me? Tease _you_ , a woman who _clearly_ displays such excellent taste? It’s like you don’t know me at all.”

She snorts, then actually thinks about what he’s asked her. He goes silent and still, watching her.

“No, to answer your question,” she says, and she’s _almost_ certain it’s true, at least as far as when Barb had been alive. “I loved her, but I never thought of her like that.”

They had kissed once, during a game of Spin the Bottle at Jordan Delancey’s house, the first party she and Barb had ever been invited to in high school, and the first time Steve Harrington had ever taken notice of her (to her knowledge), but they’d joked about it like everyone else. A lot of people had kissed that night.

Upon reflection, maybe Barb had…

But, no, she can’t think of that now. It’d be too much to consider on top of her already choked psyche. So many of her feelings for Barb are tied up with guilt. She doesn’t need to add more fuel to that particular fire.

“This obviously isn’t about my friendship with Barb…,” she starts, and Steve doesn’t pick up the thread of the conversation. She drums her fingers on the bedspread. “You and Jonathan are spending a lot of time together.”

He tenses. “It was just a question, Nance.”

“All right.” She rolls her eyes and lets it drop. She has other ways of making him talk.

* * *

Steve’s mother almost had the Costa Rican pressed down to the soles of her new, suburban housewife shoes until it was something unrecognizable. There are days even Steve forgets her surname was once Mora, but then he'll remember sneaking down to the kitchen for bizcochos in the middle of the night when he couldn’t sleep. His mother whispering, “Suave, mi cosita,” when he unwrapped a plantain leaf and ate a tamale too fast, the pork getting stuck halfway down his throat, and a cough threatened to wake his father, who loved Central America but still couldn’t stomach the food. Christmas was the only time she’d openly show she was anything other than a truly stunning trophy wife, starting the long process of making queque navideño that would last them for days and going to Misa de Gallo in a beautiful dress. Steve doesn’t remember when he stopped going with her...sometime around his twelfth birthday right before high school, he thinks. Right as he started talking to Tommy and Carol.

_You shouldn't like things just because people tell you you're supposed to._

Will Byers is a pretty nice kid. But then, he’s got a nice mom, and Jonathan helped to practically raise him so what other way _would_ he be?

“What's this? _You_ didn't make it, did you?” Jonathan carries a square, white dish of porcelain into the living room from the kitchen..  

“It’s bread pudding from my mom. I’ve had a ton. You two can finish it off.” Steve waves between the dish and Nancy, who’s lounging on the couch flipping idly through channels. It’s still a few days until Christmas, and Jonathan and she have started treating his place like a second home.

Steve loves it.

“All right.” Jonathan smiles

Nancy leans against the back of the couch, watching him closely. “Where are you going?”

“Mass,” Steve picks up his hat from where he’d dropped it onto the low table in front of the television.

“Seriously?” Jonathan stares in disbelief.

“Do we need to…,” Nancy trails off, an adorable crease forming between her eyebrows.

“I’ll be back in an hour or so.” He ignores both of them and steps out the door, leaving his friends alone in his house.

He doesn’t know if a cop uniform is appropriate attire for the occasion, but his mother looks delighted to see him.

Maybe he'd want to travel if he could go to Costa Rica, just once. Maybe he’d take his mother one day.

* * *

When he comes home, Nancy and Jonathan are still there, curled together on the couch, the picture of domesticity. He remembers a time, watching them similarly posed through the window of Nancy’s house and wonders when he became so completely disconnected from the hurt person then.

He goes into his room to change. Next week, Nancy’s taking her gentle hands and teasing smirk back to Pasadena, and Jonathan’s soft, romantic heart will be in New York.

And Steve will still be here in Hawkins.

* * *

Nancy’s face down on his mattress when he hears it. The whisper of a name.

Steve slides out of her and bites down on a moan. She giggles when he grips her hips and flips her over, situating her legs around his waist and pinning her by her wrists.

“ _Don’t_ do that.”

“Do what?” She shoots him him a look that’s downright filthy.

She’d been doing this...thing...since he’d brought up Barb, and she wasn’t particularly subtle about it.

“You know what.” He presses down against her stomach and feels triumphant when her eyelids flutter. “If you want to sleep with Byers so badly, then go sleep with him. He's practically next door.”

She keeps smiling at him like the cat that got the cream. Which he guesses, given the position they’re currently in, she has.

“I don’t know what you mean, Steve.”

"I mean,” he thrusts up, “it's generally considered poor manners to yell out some other guy's name during sex."

“I wasn’t,” she takes a sharp breath and rolls her hips, “yelling. And you don’t _really_ seem to mind.”

He doesn’t, _that’s the problem_. Because no matter how slim her hips are under his palms, how soft her lips are on his neck, she’ll say _his_ name, and he’s back in that place, thinking things he really oughtn't.

Steve pushes into her again, pressing a hand into her hair and kissing the side of her temple.

 _Nancy, Nancy, Nancy,_ he thinks, _dinitrogen and covalent bonds. She’s much too smart for me._

He falls back on the bed, panting, and rolls the condom off. Nancy stares down at him, her chest heaving and slick with sweat.

“Were you thinking about him?” She looks only mildly curious.

“I was thinking about you,” he says, glad he can be honest.

“The whole time?” She grins.

“You _said his name._ I can't help where my mind goes!”

"Maybe you're just really horny? You did say all the best girls left after high school." Nancy's face is bunched up adorably. She sounds like she’s hoping for Steve’s sanity, not like she believes a word she’s saying, and this only makes him feel worse.

"No, Nance. It feels,” he throws an arm over his eyes, “it feels just like it felt with you."

"Me?" She moves his arm, wrapping it around her shoulders and laying against his chest.

"God, this is embarrassing.” He doesn't want to tell her this. Never thought he'd have to. “I really liked you, Nancy. _Like_ you,” he adds because that part hasn’t changed. “I would see you across the hall and think, ‘that girl, _wow_ , that girl!’”

She laughs. “Really?”

“I swear!” He holds a hand to his heart. “Don’t get me wrong, I got awful advice about how to go from there, but I thought you were…”

“Different?” She leans on her elbow to look down at him.

“Brilliant.” She goes light pink and ducks her head. “And lately all I can think is just…”

He clenches a fist under the sheets, cursing his own body for betraying him. He _shouldn’t_ miss Jonathan the way he misses Nancy, gut deep and aching.

She’s quiet for a moment. “Maybe you like both.”

“That a thing?”

Come to California and visit _me_ next time.” Her smile is gentle. “It's a thing.”

“So it's a thing in California. Somehow that doesn't make me feel better.” He sits up, dislodging her with care. “You know my dad already has enough reasons to disown me.”

She chews her bottom lip. “Well...it's not like we have to _tell_ anyone.”

And he knows she’s not just talking about his feelings. As much as she wears her feelings on her sleeve, Steve doesn’t think Nancy would appreciate it if he let Jonathan know about the turn her night time fantasies have taken.

She sits up beside him, resting a hand on his knee. “I won’t say anything, I swear.”

_You keep my secrets, and I’ll keep yours._

Steve thinks about laying on the bed with Jonathan, Nancy pressed against his side on the couch.

_Right._

He hopes his smile is more convincing than his thoughts.

* * *

Mike sleeps in the fort sometimes. He doesn’t think anything will happen, but…

All right, so maybe a small part of him dares to hope.

Excitement swells in his chest one night when the doorknob jiggles until he realizes it’s Nancy sneaking back in from wherever she’s been. Probably Steve’s. Maybe Jonathan’s. He and Will don’t have a clue what’s going on there.

Nancy’s started up the stairs; Mike can hear the creak on the bottom step. She must notice his light because she turns back, and her shadow looms over the covers of the fort before the folds are split open, and she’s crawling inside.

“Hey,” she looks around like she’s never been inside, “can’t sleep?”

He shakes his head.

“Me too.” She lays back against some of the pillows. “Not tonight, just...most nights.”

“Did Lucas say something to you?” Mike crosses his arms.

“He did.” She mimics him. “He didn’t really have to, though. I get it.”

Mike relaxes a little. He guesses of anyone, she would.

“I met a man,” Nancy says, and Mike feels his lip curl. “No, not like that. Hold on, I’ll be right back.”

She leaves the warm comfort of the fort and disappears somewhere upstairs. She’s gone for a good while, and when she comes back, it’s with a small backpack she’d brought home with her.

Nancy’s rummaging around in the pack, and Mike uses the opportunity to get a good look at her. Nancy’s always been thin, but she’s pale now too. Like she spends all her time inside. Pale like Will.

But whenever she calls, she sounds excited. Happy. She’d tell him if something was wrong. She’d promised.

“I met a man who can help us,” she finally finishes her thought, pulling out a beige folder filled with papers of different sizes.

Nancy had told Mike, when she picked Caltech, she was going to find a way to bring Eleven back. He didn’t know if she could, if it was even _possible_ , but that she was even trying was…

He takes the file, flipping through the first few pages. Maps and drawings, mostly.

“There are fissures all around Hawkins,” she explains, quiet and rushed. “A result of what happened, I think.” She tugs one of the maps free and points between two giant lines. “These two, between Oberlin and Cherrywood...and here, where Mirkwood is. They’re like, like, mini-gates.”

“So...El can get out?” Mike’s heart beats double time.

“Not really,” Nancy winces, “If she can, she can't stay here very long. The fissures work more like...sieves.”

“It’s letting the good stuff in and keeping the bad stuff out?”

“Very good.” Nancy’s whole face lights up.

“But El’s not bad!” Mike hits the map.

“Sieves aren’t _moral_ , Mike,” Nancy rolls her eyes. “Bad is relative. For us, it’s just whatever molecule we’re looking to sort through. The bad from the good. The gold from the water. In this case…”

“Eleven from the world?”

Nancy nods.

“And this guy, this,” Mike looks at the name at the top of the map, “ _Ficken_? He’s just helping out of the goodness of his heart?” He lowers his voice. “He’s _government_.”

Nancy flips to the back of the folder, and Mike stares down. A man in a suit stares back at him.

“He started following me, my work, right after the break in the Hawkins Lab Investigation,” she explains. “I didn’t even have to tell him about Eleven.”

Mike stays quiet, eyes scanning the page. Attended College at Caltech, like Nancy. Navy Marine with two overseas tours...and a daughter who disappeared two years before El.

“She was...one of the other kids?”

“I don’t know the whole story.” She raises her hands. “Maybe he consented and feels terrible about it now. Maybe this is all fake, and he’s just a good samaritan who knows this is the way to my heartstrings. It doesn’t matter. Because if he says anything, he’ll have a government agency down his throat wondering why a Caltech student has access to high level government tech.”

Mike stares at the file and hopes that Ficken is honest, for Nancy’s sake. That he wants, like Mike, to bring someone he cares about back from the Upside Down.

“What do you want us to do?”

“ _You_ stay in school and keep an eye out for anything suspicious.” Nancy shuts the folder. “If these cracks are holding Eleven back, they might be letting other things through.”

“Am I allowed to tell my friends? We could patrol.”

She bites her lip and, afraid she'll say no, Mike jumps ahead.

“Nancy, Lucas and Dustin and me, we owe Eleven our lives. _Will_ owes Eleven his life.” Mike fights not to shout. “They'll want to help.”

She sighs. “I get it. I'm just researching now. As soon as I learn anything I won't go it alone.”

“You'll let us know?”

“I'll let you know. Promise.”

She pulls him into a hug and, after a moment he wraps his arms around her back, “Don't worry, Mike, I'm going to fix this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Barb/Nancy shipper in me had a fair bit of trouble making Nancy say she had no feelings for Barb, let me tell you right now. Also, do you guys know how much work goes into actually making Costa Rican tamales? (Hint: it’s a lot.)
> 
> Come see updates and say hi to me on [tumblr](http://feoplepeel.tumblr.com/)!


	5. Jonathan

“I think it's great that Jim’s spending so much time with Will, but taking all the kids seems a little excessive right?”

“Will said he wanted to go bowling.” Jonathan shrugs. “It's really only fun in a group. You should be there with them.”

“No!” she coos. “I've been waiting for this call all week Jonathan!”

“Mom,” he laughs, aiming for a more reassuring tone, “I can call you tomorrow. Will's not going to want to go bowling with the grownups forever.”

She sighs, and he can hear her shuffling around to pull on her coat. “Dammit, when you're right, you're right.”

“Hey, Mom,” Jonathan says before she can hang up, “how’s Steve?”

He knows no matter how he asks the question, it's going to sound weird, but at least it’s better than asking Will who had opened his own bedroom door over Christmas break and watched Steve step out of _Jonathan's_ room. No matter how innocently Jonathan was able to explain things away, Will seemed unable to look him in the eye until Christmas morning when nothing but presents mattered.

Man, was he glad Steve had a house to escape to...though that may have only made the situation worse in retrospect.

“Good, I guess? Did he say something?”

“No….”

That was the issue. He hadn’t said _anything_. In over a month, actually. And, yeah, Jonathan could call, but...he wrote on the first. And he’s pretty used to Steve picking things up on that end. “He’s letting Aaron stay with him, which I thought was really sweet. He’s probably excited to have more people to talk to his own age.” She chuckles.

“Aaron?”

“You know, the new kid that works with me? Real nice, talks too much?”

“Sounds like Steve.”

“Yeah, they get along like a house on fire.”

“Hm.”

“Oh, don’t worry, sweetie.”

“About what?”

“Nothing.” She sounds like she’s smothering a laugh. “You should ring him up. He’s probably been busy dealing with all that, but I know he’d like to hear from you. Always asks after you.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay,” he says because now it’s getting embarrassing.

“Okay, baby, I'm gonna run, but you'll call tomorrow?”

“Promise.”

* * *

He can’t afford to come home for spring break.

Nancy surprises him with a visit instead. She’s accompanied by a man in a suit Jonathan is sure is out of his price range.

“My...friend had to come out here for some equipment, and I asked if I could join. I’m even getting extra credit,” she tells his still shocked face. He doesn’t let her keep talking, leaning over her smaller frame to hug her. She giggles, patting his chest awkwardly from where her arms are trapped.

She insists on ‘the grand tour’ which is comprised only of his dorm, the Thai place that’s almost a second home, and a few places around campus he likes. They only walk out as far as the corner of Cedar and Broadway because Nancy refuses to take the subway, and she seems a little overwhelmed by all the shops anyway. Cebe and her boyfriend, Malik, join them for dinner (some pasta dish Cebe’s mom sends her every Tuesday, without fail), and it almost feels like he and Nancy are….

Jonathan shakes his head. He doesn’t need to go down that road.

The other two eventually head upstairs, and Nancy stays across from Jonathan at the table in the kitchen of his dorm, eyeing the broken stove.

“I don’t cook either,” she confesses, after a minute or so.

“I miss it, actually.” He leans across the table, attempting to fold a napkin into a swan. He doesn’t know how, and it ends up being a diamond by the end, but it’s fun to play with.

“It’s weird, Steve living with someone,” he says, picking at the center of the new fold he’s made. They haven’t talked about Hawkins, or Steve, all day through some strange unspoken agreement (apart from the now habitual, ‘How’s your brother?’). Sometimes home seems so far away, that if he stopped talking about it, it might stop existing altogether. Or that maybe it only existed when he came back to it.

But he knew that was one of those strange, self-absorbed thoughts. Life at home always goes on while you’re away.

“Oh, did he tell you about that?” Nancy’s voice brings him back to the kitchen at NYU.

“Mom did.” He stares at her above the napkin. “Did he tell _you_?”

“Kind of.” She loosens her hair from its braid and undoes it in slow movements. “I know what you mean, though. If this guy is still living there the next time we visit….”

No more late night movie parties with their brothers, probably. No more three way friendship Christmas gift exchanges.

“It won’t be the same.” He pushes up on his elbows, abandoning his project. “After school, one of us can get a house, and he can come visit there. Get away from his roommate.”

Nancy gives him a look. He knows what she’s thinking. _Me? Go back to Hawkins? In your dreams, Byers, I finally got out of that town!_

But the word that comes out of her mouth is, “Roommate?” Jonathan knows he must look confused, and her eyebrows raise. “Oh, you’re not being purposely...you just _don’t know._ ”

She’s blushing. It takes him an embarrassingly long time to realize why.

“ _Steve_?”

“Yes, Steve! Dont...say anything!” She looks around the room wildly as though Steve is going to pop out from inside one of the silverware drawers. “And _don’t_ tell him I told you! He’s, like, three steps away from freaking out.”

“Okay.”

“Okay,” Nancy settles in her seat, watching him hesitantly, “you're fine with it?”

He wouldn’t say he's _fine_ exactly. So Steve’s seeing someone, or sleeping with someone, he's never sure how it's worked with the guy. Steve’s not _talking_ to him so he can't ask to find out anyway.

He settles on, “It’ll be good for Will...to have someone to talk to, I guess.” There. That’s the closest he’ll come to saying what everyone in their close-knit circle knows but never says out loud. “How long have you known?”

“He called me right after it happened, but don’t feel bad, I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who--”

“No, not about Adam--”

“Aaron,” she interjects.

“Right. About the other stuff.” He goes back to playing with the now-shredded napkin. “Or are they hand-in-hand?”

Nancy looks uncomfortable. “I’ve known for a while, I guess.” She answers both of his questions at once.

“But over Christmas, weren't you..." he fails to contain his smirk.

“You two are _so_ ….” She rolls her eyes. “You can like both, you know! It’s possible!”

“I know that.” He backs up, a little startled. “I just...wasn’t sure if Steve did.”

They stare at each for another few seconds before bursting into loud peals of laughter.

“Can we talk about something else?” she asks, wiping away a tear of mirth. “ _Anything_ else, preferably.”

Jonathan taps the corner of the table. “All right, follow me,”

“Where are we going?” She steps around the table and catches the jacket he tosses her, one of his own.

“You’ll see.”

* * *

It takes more time than he's used to to get to the roof of the Barney Building, but it's worth it for the look on Nancy’s face when they reach the top.

“You like it?”

“ _Much_ cooler than Central Park,” she laughs, careful not to step too close to the edge of the roof. It's not a windy night, but that means very little this high up.

He snaps a picture of her stunned face, turned up, so much closer to the lights of the planes and farther from the noise of the people.

“What do you see when you take a picture of me now?” she asks, and when Jonathan looks up from spooling the camera, she’s two steps closer than she was before. She takes the camera from him in small, easy movements and he wonders how she does it. He feels like his grip is bone tight.

He should be saying something, he realizes.

He kisses her instead.

He doesn’t have a long time to process it, it’s short as far as kisses go, but if he had to pick a word to describe it, he’d choose transcendent.

The setting was appropriate. For such a small thing, the feeling went above and beyond.

He pulls back, an apology climbing up his throat, but Nancy’s lips follow his like she can’t help it, and her arms circle around his neck like she’ll fall if he’s not there.

His hand finds her hair, unbraided from before and spilling onto her shoulder in a soft wave, as soft as he’d imagined.

The kisses that come after are harsh and biting, bringing him back to his body like falling from orbit. He has the dizzying thought that maybe it’s _him_ that should be holding onto _her_ before he realizes that he already is, arms circling her waist and tugging her close.

His camera grazes the back of his neck from its place still clutched in Nancy’s hand, and he reaches a hand back to touch it, grounding him.

 _The roof._ He looks around, thoughts dizzy and out of focus.

“Let’s go, before someone sees and calls the cops.”

“This high up?” Nancy grins wide, breathless, and he thinks, _I did that_.

“This isn’t Rockefeller Plaza, you know?”

She pulls away, arms dropping to her sides, but she doesn’t look any less happy. “I’m just saying, they’d have to be very dedicated to the craft of voyeurism.”

“Come on, exhibitionist.” He grabs her hand, scar to scar, and pulls her towards the door of the roof..

Walking back down the dark steps inside the Barney Building, Nancy smiles at the camera.

“Can I keep it?”

 _Can I keep it_?

Steve had had the same hopeful tone when he asked over Christmas.

Don't think about it. He’s gotten good at not thinking about it.

Jonathan grins at her. “Yeah, of course.”

* * *

They've shared a bed before, and under more difficult circumstances, so he has no excuse to feel as nervous as he does when Nancy closes the door to his room behind her, shutting them both inside.

"I can go back to my hotel." She twists her fingers together.

“No, no,” he says in a rush. “You're fine. Here,” he clarifies.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Jonathan relaxes into a smile. He's been doing that a lot lately.

When Jonathan comes back from brushing his teeth, Nancy’s snoring lightly on top of the covers.

Jonathan takes another picture of her while she's laid against the blue of his sheets, hand pressed to her cheek. She looks settled and peaceful.

He doesn't have the heart to wake her, even to change or tuck her in. Just pulls out the spare quilt from his closet and settles it over both of them before falling asleep himself.

* * *

Steve finally writes back the week after Nancy visits, so Jonathan figures she must have given him a hard time.

He doesn't mention a... _shift_ in lifestyle choices, only that he has a new roommate, like his mom had said, and considers it a temporary situation until this guy can find someplace more hospitable in Hawkins.

 _Or Indianapolis_. Jonathan thinks uncharitably. _Or India._

Steve had called the guy a world-traveler; he'd probably love India.

Jonathan attributes this unusual bitterness to the fact that Steve still hasn't called. He shouldn't begrudge him new friends, but it was _Steve_ who insisted he get a phone.

The month before summer break, Jonathan swallows his pride and dials Steve’s number.

“Hello, Harrington residence?”

He hadn't counted on the roommate answering.

_Shit, what was his name?_

“Hello?”

“Uh,” Jonathan struggles for a moment, and his panic is met with a frantic scrambling on the other end of the line.

“Hello,” and then, thank God, it's Steve. Out of breath and annoyed but undoubtedly Steve.

“Hey.”

“Jonathan?”

He can hear a muffled “ _That's Joyce's son?”_ from the roommate, but Steve's quick to shush him.

“Sorry that was--”

“Your roommate.”

“Yeah, Aaron,” Steve clarifies. “He works--”

“With Mom, I know. I’ve heard it from both of you _several times-_ -”

“Hi Jonathan! I’m Aaron!” the voice shouts, clearer now. A few minutes of muted arguing later, and it’s just Steve again.

Steve sounds contrite. “Sorry, didn't mean to leave you hanging.”

That strikes a nerve. Jonathan visibly winces if only because he thought he’d come to terms with his abandonment issues long ago. He doesn’t think Steve’s forgotten him or that he’s going to drop him and move on to the next thing, but it still hits a little close to home.

“It’s okay.” He leans against the headboard. “It sounds like Aaron is keeping you busy.”

“Hardly.” Steve falls back to the relaxed tone Jonathan is used to, and it's like the months away from the phone never happened at all. “Now that I’m no longer the newest rookie on the force, the guys have decided to take the training wheels off. Mostly by putting me on any and all assignments they don't feel like.”

Jonathan fights a laugh. “These would be?”

“Parking duty, late night speed traps, anything that eats time and kills joy.” Steve groans. “Enough about my boring life. What's up with you?”

“End of semester exams.” He looks over at his projects, half-finished in the corner. “Nancy came down for break.”

“She mentioned,” Steve coughs. Jonathan wonders _how much_ she mentioned. “I spent what you two called spring break overseeing the Hawkins Annual Community Easter Egg Hunt.”

“And moving in with some guy you barely knew.”

Steve makes an offended noise. “I’ll have you know that this _some guy_ was practically forced upon me by Joyce. And, well, you know how she is...”

Jonathan smiles because he loves his mother but, yes, he _does_ know how she can be.

They keep talking for another half hour, about Hawkins and Nancy and Will. It strikes Jonathan as fundamentally weird that Will and his mother have spoken to Steve more in the past year than he has, but it gives him a warm feeling too.

Even when he’s busy, he’s still looking out for Jonathan’s family. Not abandoned after all.

* * *

Steve calls more regularly after that, and Aaron is _always_ there. It helps that Steve seems as frustrated as Jonathan.

“What’s up with that guy?” Jonathan asks because _whatever_ their relationship is (and if Steve’s not telling, Jonathan isn’t asking) it’s no excuse to be nosy.

There's a deep sigh from the other end of the phone, then nothing.

Jonathan moves the phone to his other ear, eyebrows raising slowly. Steve's never quiet for this long. “Steve?”

“Sorry.” He startles like he'd forgotten he was on the phone. “I think he thinks we're better friends than we actually...are,” he finishes weakly.

“The two of you,” Jonathan asks, “or the two of us?”

“Both.” Steve laughs. “And I know what Nancy's going to say--”

“Nancy's usually right.”

“Not about this. She's kind of biased.”

Steve’s quiet again, but it’s a more subdued sound. Like he’s thinking, like that picture he took their senior year. Jonathan waits.

“I want him to leave, but it’s just...lonely out here.”

 _Incongruous._ Jonathan thinks, because of all things, Steve Harrington should never feel _lonely_.

“It’s just a few weeks until break, you know?” he says, and it comes out softer than he intends. “Me and Nancy will be back soon.”

* * *

By the time he steps onto Steve’s front lawn, his first day in Hawkins for summer break, the house is blessedly roommate-free. Nancy is, however, lounging in a lawn chair with a glass of water dangling dangerously from her right hand.

“Jonathan!” She pulls her feet up into the seat, plastic squeaking under her bare feet. She shoots him a private smile. “Welcome home!”


	6. Nancy

Nancy’s out of minutes on her phone card so she’s resorted to using the library phone until more money from her parents comes through.

 _Maybe I should get a job…_. She winds the thick silver cord through her fingers as she waits for an answer on the other end. Eventually Steve picks up.

The first thing he says after exchanging pleasantries is, “I slept with someone.”

“Ew, Steve.” She feels her face contort. “No details please.” She hadn't assumed chastity on Steve’s part, but that doesn’t mean she wants to hear about it.

“No, it’s not,” he sounds frustrated then lowers his voice. “It was a _guy,_ Nance.”

“ _What_?” Someone exiting the library nearly trips over the first step, and she shoots them an apologetic look. Once they’re out of earshot, she continues, “How did you even know if he was...you know?”

Steve’s laughter borders on hysterical. “You remember, uh, Aaron?”

“ _You slept with your roommate_?”

“Temporary roommate,” he says, as he always does. “I don’t know how it happened--”

“You don’t know how it--seriously, Steve?” She releases her tight grip on the phone cord. “Last month you tried to write the guy a ticket, and he offered you a blowjob! I can take a guess!”

“But I _did_ give him a ticket,” he points out, and she fights not to roll her eyes. She remembers because Steve had puffed up for a good while about how he had ‘turned down his base desires in the name of justice’. Meanwhile, the ticket he had written wasn’t even for the correct infraction; it was for ‘mouthing off’, which Steve had thought was genuinely clever. “I was just talking to him the way I always do, and he thought I was flirting.”

“You probably _were_.” She can hear him smothering a laugh and smiles against her hand, careful to cover the mouthpiece (she’s heard _awful_ stories). “Well...is he _nice_? You haven’t told me a lot about this guy except he’s more poor than you and knows what a washing machine is.”

“Nice? Yeah, I guess,” Steve sounds as though this hadn’t occurred to him. “He talks a lot but not really _about_ anything. He just kind of...talks.”

“My mom would love him.”

“I’ll bet.” He really does laugh this time. “Speaking of, spring break’s coming up. You coming home?”

“No,” Nancy says slowly, thinking of Steve’s house with some _invader_ inside. “No, I think I’m going to travel.”

* * *

There’s a hole in the ozone layer. Quite a few of Nancy’s classmates redirect all of the energy they once put into MWI into that light blue spot no one expected to find above Antarctica. The hole seems...important. And in her spare time, that’s what Mr. Ficken (for she refuses to call him _Theodore_ or _Ted_ and shudders when she remembers her connection at DARPA shares a name with her father) encourages her to research. Amazingly, equipment disguised for just this purpose appears on her desk, and she creates simulation after simulation of realities existing outside her own; tears in what is and isn’t.

One day, she sticks her hand through, and it disappears completely.

That’s not how holes in the ozone work, so she doesn’t write into any scientific journals. She does call Mike the next night because that’s _exactly_ how it’d felt to crawl down, deep into the Upside-Down.

And if she could go in....

 _Work backwards to zero, Nancy. How does a fissure start?_ Hawkins Lab, Eleven, gave them the answers to that. _Go forward a step. What’s past raw energy?_

She thinks about the tools at DARPA’s disposal and how to open the fissure wide, just enough to get a little girl through.

* * *

Ficken has coffee with her sometimes. People in her class think he’s her brother. The girl across the hall, Haiyue, teases that he's her _secondary income_ . Nancy stares at him over the rim of her cup. He _is_ a handsome, older gentleman, but everything she knows about him ends there (beyond how he takes his coffee; cream, no sugar).

She’s told him about her latest discovery, and this is, she assumes, why he’s asked to meet her. He hands her a slip of paper. It'll have a location, she knows, a drop spot with more files for her to read through.

“Thanks.” She flips the paper over and over in her hands.

He stares at her, nonplussed.

“Look,” she sets her cup down a little too hard, “why are you doing this? Helping me. I have to know.”

He seems to consider her before answering. “You are very intelligent, Miss Wheeler.”

“Thank you?”

“You have likely...made the logical assumption that my daughter was party to all of this.” He motions to the paper in her hands, and her eyebrows draw together.

“I drew the conclusion you wanted me to,” she speaks slowly, edging around the question. “I never assumed I _knew_ anything.”

“As I said, you are intelligent.” She doesn’t know if she’s seeing things, but it might be the ghost of a smile playing at Ficken’s lips. “You weren't far off. My mother was in a similar position to Terry Ives when I was very young. The program was...fresh. I didn't understand.” His nose twitches, and she can’t read the emotion on his face. Sadness? Disgust? “And in my adulthood, I didn’t believe her.”

“So, she had a daughter?” Nancy leans on her elbows, her mind pulling, against her will, to Mike. “You have a sister out there?”

“I might.” He leans back in his seat, a more careless air about him than she’s ever seen, “Never cared for any of that. A little difficult to dredge up sympathy for a kid I’d never heard of, and who’s probably dead on top of it all. But my mother….” His lips thin into a line, and this emotion is _easy_ to read. Anger, stretched out on a canvas of skin. “She was brilliant. Whatever happened took all that away from her. They made me think for years that it was just drugs. Then I joined the Navy, then DARPA. Got access.” He shakes his head. “Despicable.”

She reaches over and gives his hand a rather awkward pat. By the look he gives her, the sentimentality is just as uncomfortable for him. Still, she’s relieved. This isn't about helping someone in the same way it is for her, but she thinks of the picture of Barb kept folded beneath her pillow and realizes that maybe they have something in common.

That night she calls her mom, and if she stays on the phone a little longer than usual, asks her things she’s forgotten to care about since starting college, it’s only because she’s scared to death of becoming the man who sat across the table from her.

* * *

The most important piece of information in the file she picks up is that someone has been working with the Department of Energy to place stabilizers, beacons of high level energy, all around Hawkins. Stabilizers that, upon study she realizes, keep any existing fissures from staying open for too long.

 _I guess Hawkins Lab is more active than the papers would have Indiana believe_ is her first thought.

Her second is, _What if we just...take a few away?_

She splits her time between studying for exams (a veritable walk in the park at this point) and cross referencing energy signatures with the data from her own experiments with DARPA’s equipment.

She falls back on the bed, pages and pages of notes swimming through her head. She reaches under her pillow and opens Barb’s picture for the first time in months.

“Mike’s going to be so happy.”

_What about after?_

“Then, we can just...put it back,” Nancy says out loud to no one. “It’s okay, Barb. We’ve worked too hard on this!” Her happy shout catches on a yawn, and she closes her eyes. “Something always works out.”

* * *

Steve’s house is his alone again, and Nancy loves it. She gets along better with her mom and dad, appreciates them more away from home, but she still hates the long break with them. Can't imagine living with them again.

Steve’s house is a tiny thing so unlike where either of them grew up, especially Steve, whose home was practically a mansion by Indiana standards. There’s barely a yard in both directions and only one bedroom and bathroom. Technically there are two bedrooms, but Steve keeps so much junk in one that it’s practically unlivable. The washer and dryer are in the kitchen, and there’s only a small window above the sink to let any air in, so Steve usually keeps the back door open which Nancy thinks is incredibly irresponsible _especially_ for a cop.

“It’s ‘ _cause_ I’m a cop, Nance,” he laughs one night, setting up the VCR and whatever atrocious pick he’d nabbed from the Blockbuster around the corner.

Nancy drops the matter, settling against the arm of the couch and moving her feet to let Steve sit at the other end. He holds her feet against his thigh when he’s comfortable and turned towards the television. Nancy watches him instead.

“I can't believe this November will be two years,” he says after a while, without looking at her.

Nancy hums. Steve could mean a lot of things. Asking her out, dumping his old friends and making new ones.

Killing a monster.

“I can’t believe you had a _secret boyfriend._ ” She kicks him lightly with the heel of her foot.

Steve squeezes her ankle. “He wasn’t my boyfriend.”

“A secret _sex-friend_ then. That sounds classy.”

“I wasn’t really going for classy.” She ducks a couch pillow he aims at her head, pulling it down and hugging it to her stomach. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter now, does it? Whatever he was, he’s gone now.” He waves a hand through the air. “Despedida.”

Nancy rolls her eyes. “If he wasn’t your boyfriend, why haven’t you told Jonathan about him?”

“I did.” Steve turns his attention back to the screen. “I said he was my roommate. I didn’t _lie_.”

For a moment she wonders if this is going to be freshman year all over again Steve whining until she finally convinces him it's pointless to fight her. But...she gets it, she supposes. And who’s she to judge at this point?

So she just crosses her arms. “And?”

“And what?”

“Well, I don’t know, did you work it out of your system?”

“It?” He makes a face, and she _knows_ that face. That odd combination of impressed and offended that she’s only seen Steve pull off with any grace.

“Your...,“ she presses her lips together, lowering her voice, “ _crush,_ Steve, do I _really_ have to say it?”

“I wish you wouldn’t!” And if he looked offended before, he looks _scandalized_ now. “Why are we always talking about this?!”

“Because you won’t! _Neither_ of us do. It’s so fucking frustrating!” She punches the pillow on her stomach.

They settle back on their separate sides of the couch again, and her breathing evens out. He hasn't made her angry in a long time.

“You know, the way he talked, I don't think he believed that I still cared about you." Steve's brows draw together. "Or maybe it was women. That I, you know, ehm...”

Nancy almost throws the pillow back in his face, “They're not dirty words, you _can_ use it in front of me.”

“You sayin’ I can’t use dirty words in front of you, Nancy Wheeler?” Steve finally looks at her, and she can’t help the grin that spills out of her.

She feels her grin soften to something fonder. "You'll feel better if you say it out loud, you know. Even just to yourself."

Steve takes a deep breath, then brings his hands up as though in solemn prayer, “Dear Lord, who art in heaven--”

“Steve!” She pulls her bottom lip between her teeth to keep from laughing.

But Steve is staring at the ceiling, his head pressed tight against the back of the couch, and his jaw clenched entirely too tight. “I don’t want this. I don’t want to...feel like this.”

Nancy studies him for a moment longer then tilts her own head back on the arm of the couch.

“I like Jonathan. A lot. I might--” She shakes her head. It feels traitorous to say it to someone else first, even Steve.

Steve is above her a second later, staring at her and looking sweetly confused. She extends a hand to push back the hair matted to his forehead from his too-humid living room.

"Steve?"

He turns his head to kiss her palm, and she smiles up at him, feeling fond if confused. "Ah, I love you, Nancy Wheeler."

She balks, pushing his shoulders as hard as she can. "Steve!"

Once he’s back on the other side of the couch, she hits him with her pillow in the face, for good measure.

"What?" She can hear him laughing under the fabric, and she’s able to cover her face by the time he removes the pillow.

"You can't just _say_ that!"

"I had to!" He’s still laughing, and she joins in a moment later, peeking from between her fingers. "You were just laying there looking so cute!"

She lowers her hand and gives Steve a considering look. At some point, when she wasn’t looking, he’d grown up.

“I miss you,” she says and it gets her a shocked look. She realizes that she’s never said it first before.

It’s true though. She misses Steve when he doesn’t call her. Had been so uncomfortable with the idea of someone else in his orbit that she had run to New York instead of seeing whether or not their dynamic would hold under the new constraints of some foreign object.

“And I’m glad you and your not-boyfriend broke up,” she adds before Steve can speak. “Jonathan is too. We love your house.”

He settles back onto the couch with a smirk. “I knew it. You two only want me for my sweet mortgage.”


	7. Steve

Steve approaches the now still vehicle with mild trepidation. Parking duty is more boring than sitting on the side of the highway waiting for speeding vehicles, but at least he gets cried at less often.

“Sorry, officer,” a man’s voice says before the window’s finished rolling down, “I'm new in town, and I’m a little lost.”

Steve sighs, flipping his pad open. If he hears that excuse _one more time_. “License and registration?”

Then he looks into the window of the car.

 _This guy really isn’t from Hawkins_.

Because that was one thing that could be said about Steve. He knew just about everyone. Even before he was a cop he noticed people, and this someone was... _noticeable_.

The man was holding out his I.D., and Steve was still staring.

“Hey you know,” the man grinned, “I have a thought….”

Two hours later, he's filling in the paperwork at the station, red to his ears.

Two weeks later, Joyce Byers calls.

* * *

Steve knows something’s up when Joyce invites him over for dinner. She only ever offers when he’s already there or he’s done something particularly nice (not often with his recent schedule). So when she finally gets down to brass tacks and asks if some _guy_ can live with him while they’re watching television and eating ice cream from a tub Steve brought (because he's a _good_ dinner guest), it’s not terribly shocking.

“He’s new in town, and he's been staying at a hotel. I would offer him Jonathan’s room, but…,” she trails off, her eyes sliding to Will, who’s gotten himself tangled in the phone cord chatting with Dustin about some comic book character they either love or hate. He can never tell with those kids.

When he meets Joyce's eyes again, they're wide and pleading.

_If I don't say yes, she'll eventually cave. He's gonna be an axe murderer, and she'll kill him, and after she’s buried the body, Hop’ll still strangle me for letting an axe murderer live in his girlfriend's house. Lose-lose, Harrington._

“Sure, let me meet the guy.”

Besides he really doesn't want some stranger in Jonathan's room.

* * *

When the door opens at the hotel, Aaron Raley is standing on the other side of it. Steve remembers the name because he’d only ticketed him two weeks ago, and more memorably, he’d been the only person he'd met who thought fellatio was the easiest way of escaping said ticket.

Though, in retrospect...

 _"You_?”

 _“You_!”

Anyway, that's the story of how Steve Harrington moves in with a relative stranger...and accidentally winds up sleeping with him shortly thereafter.

* * *

Sex with a guy is...different. Not better or worse. He feels like he can be more rough, at least, and not that Nancy can't handle rough, it's just rare that she ever asks for it.

Inevitably comes the worry; what this guy can do to him, to his reputation, if anyone finds out what they're really doing. But as experienced as Aaron seems to be, he seems equally inclined to keeping whatever it is they’re doing to themselves.

Besides, Steve’s got a bit of clout around town now, enough that his parents actually invite him to dinner sometimes (though he largely suspects his mother's hand), and the best thing he's learned in his time away from people like Tommy and Carol is not caring much about what those sort of people think.

Still, he never gets that warm feeling in the pit of his stomach when he looks at Aaron. He never thinks, “That guy. _Wow. That_ guy.”

* * *

One day, Aaron hands him a book called _The Ins and Outs of Gay Sex_.

“Wow.” Steve picks it up by the spine and lets it hang like he might catch something from it.

“I also have _Philosophical Reflections On Sex and Gender_ , but I thought you'd appreciate that one more.”

“I already know how to have sex.”

“You've taken a beginners crash course. Consider this your intermediate level class.”

Steve falls back on the bed and opens to the chapter titles. Some of them look… _intimidating._

“It's a gift. You should just say thank you and pretend to like it.” Aaron crosses his arms. “Which, trust me, you will. Especially chapter four.”

“Yes thanks for this, the embarrassing gift of,” he picks a random chapter further down the list, not even wanting to see what _four_ is yet, “The art of nipple play? How the _hell_ can that be any different?”

“You'd be surprised.” Aaron twists to land on his back beside him. Privately, Steve doesn't think he would. He and Nancy had never gotten too weird, but nipples were always fair game.

“What are you even doing in Hawkins, man?” Steve lets the book fall on his chest and stares at the ceiling.

“Small towns are nice.” He can feel Aaron shrug. “Less rent money than the city, and the people are friendly.”

Steve snorts. “What sort of people have you been hanging around to give you that idea?”

“Joyce,” he says, and Steve hums in acknowledgment. “You, mostly.”

He bites down on his first response, a fairly vehement denial. Hop was right, his optimism had been slowly shot to pieces, and he can't even remember when.

“That's me,” Steve digs down and finds it in him somewhere to grin, “friendliest guy in Hawkins.” He sits up, book falling to his lap. “Now, what's chapter four?”

* * *

Everything’s gone quiet at Mirkwood, but the chief’s been missing a few of his shifts and looks twice as tired when he _is_ at the station. So Steve worries twice as much and doesn't stop patrolling the woods.

Then Jonathan calls him.

Jonathan _never_ calls him.

He's happily surprised because it reminds him how much he wants to _keep_ talking to him.

Aaron notices. Of course he does; they live together.

“You talk to him a lot.”

Steve laughs. “Jealous?”

"Maybe, ” Aaron winces, and offers him half a sandwich. “Sorry.”

Steve bites down. It’s got a lot of mayo, but he’s snuck a few jalapenos in the middle, and Steve sends a silent thanks with his eyes. When he’s able to speak, he says, “Jonathan’s my best friend.”

Steve knows it’s true by now, but he doesn’t think he’s ever said it out loud.

“I thought Nancy was your best friend.”

“She is.”

“So if they’re your best friends,” Aaron leans across the sink, pulling the bread towards him to make another sandwich, “do they know?”

Nancy does. He’d not talked about Aaron often, but after all the shit she’d given him a few months ago, he figured he owed it to the woman to at least keep her informed. And Jonathan...well, he’s not stupid. He may have figured _something_ out. Or Nancy might have told him. But, no, Steve hasn't.

Steve’s been quiet for too long, and Aaron must take it as a sign. He sets the knife down. It’s covered in too much mayonnaise, Steve notices.

“Is he homophobic?” he asks with, _ugh_ , pity. Steve almost laughs in his face because all he can think about is the rush of shame that accompanies the memory of calling Jonathan queer once. Somewhere at the back of his mind he notices that Aaron’s focused on Jonathan, not Nancy. Never Nancy.

Steve rolls his eyes. “He did some art mural on the importance of Stonewall last year.” He remembers the postcard more than the words Jonathan had used to describe it. He wouldn’t go so far as to call the guy a socialist, but he... _cared_ about stuff.

“I don’t think that really precludes--”

“Let’s just go with,” Steve’s voice is hard because he’s feeling more than a little defensive now, “ _he’s not._  Okay?”

Aaron’s wearing a look Steve’s never seen on him before, head slightly tilted. Steve feels like he’s being examined. “Do you like him?”

Steve blows out a harsh breath. “Look, I was joking about the jealous thing, but you’re acting…” He motions up and down Aaron’s body with his free hand. “You never ask me weird shit when I talk to Nancy.”

He shrugs, turning back to the makings of his sandwich. “Steve...we have fun, don't we?”

_Shit…_

Steve chokes down the last of his sandwich because he's heard the first strains of this conversation before. Never in a man's baritone, but it follows the same pattern regardless.

“Loads.” He winks and bolts toward the open back door. “Now I seriously have to get to work! See ya!”

* * *

Maybe Steve’s no good at relationships.

He thinks about this rather seriously on the way to the station, then at his desk, pencil perched precariously between his nose and upper lip.

Because the thing is, he’d walked into a literal hell for Nancy and Jonathan. He _knows_ he loves them. But he’s not sure he can tell the difference between that pull in his stomach, the things he loves _about_ them, and what it takes to make...well, two halves of a whole.

He takes his lunch with the chief when the man lets him. Today's one of the rare days Hop says nothing when Steve sits next to him in the lounge.

“Okay you have five minutes,” he says when they've both finished eating in relative silence. “Say what it is you came in here to say, and I'll listen for the _whole five._ ”

“Thanks, chief.” Steve sets his tupperware aside. “How do you know when it's right to be with someone? The difference between wanting to, Jesus,” he doesn’t know how to say this, “ _really caring_ about someone and wanting to...care about someone?”

_Butter smooth, Harrington._

Despite the shit spilling out of Steve’s mouth, Hopper only runs a hand through his hair, looking relieved.

“Is that it? Thought you were going to ask for a raise.”

“Oh.” Steve straightens, smiles with all of his teeth like his mother taught him. “Can I have a--”

“No,” Hop cuts him off. “Why you asking? You and Wheeler getting hitched? Gotta say I didn't see her as the type to settle down,” he adds, almost absentmindedly.

“Uh, no. I just thought I might be looking at this relationship thing a little...differently than I should be.”

“Well you're, what, twenty? So yeah, probably.” He leans back in his chair, relaxing a little. “When I was your age, I was dating Joyce. Swore we’d be together forever.”

“Joyce as in…?” Steve’s mind boggles, and he finds himself slouching harder into his own seat.

“Yeah,” Hop nods, as though he hasn’t just breathed fresh life into gossip that would put Mrs Wheeler’s favorite daytime television to shame. “When she left me right after senior year, I never saw it coming. Can't blame her though. Lonnie had a job and plans...at the time anyway.”

Steve’s still reeling, most especially at the idea of Jonathan’s dad with any sort of _prospects_. “I had no idea.”

“Was before your time, wasn’t it?” Hop leans an elbow on the table turning to him a bit sharply. “And not really any of _anyone’s_ business.”

“I understand, sir.” Steve mimes a zipper over his lips, and Hop nods once, seemingly satisfied.

The chief looks at his watch, grimace back in its proper place. “Time’s about up so I guess what I’m trying to say is go for it if you think you found someone half worth it. If it doesn't work out, well, you’re gonna get hurt eventually, no matter what.” He drops his hand to the table. “There's no _one_ for you, just people you’ll decide to be with. And when that time comes you have to make a choice, what it is you're willing to sacrifice to be with them. Can you provide for them, will they be there for you? Crazy stuff like that.”

Steve wants desperately to ask what it was he wasn’t willing to sacrifice for Joyce that he’s willing to now, but something tells him it’s a subject better left alone.

“You don’t think all of that sounds...a little much? Like you said, I’m only twenty.” Steve chuckles, trying to ease the tension, but Hop just stares at him and stands from the table.

“You're a damn adult now, Harrington. That's what you get when you want an adult relationship. Deal with it or don't get involved.”

Steve swallows hard and nods.

“And that’s your five minutes.”

* * *

Steve helps Aaron find his own place the next week because they _do_ have fun. Aaron’s an interesting guy...who Steve isn't willing to sacrifice much of anything for; least of all the almost settled happiness he has when he picks up the phone and Nancy or Jonathan’s voice carries through the receiver. Drags out his thoughts and tamps down his worries from states away.

And, oh, the sacrifices he'd make for them. They're _more_ than half worth it, both of them. Fun or not, he’s sure that would eventually become an issue.

They part ways (Steve refuses to call it a breakup) right before Nancy comes home for the summer, and Steve thinks they’re both fairly friendly about it all.

He feels almost _adult_ after the whole thing is over.

He tucks the book Aaron gave him in the drawer of his bedside table, between Jonathan’s postcards and Nancy’s hair ties.

* * *

Jonathan and Nancy spend the days of summer as they had over Christmas, torn between their families and the little trio they’d made for themselves. It doesn't take much convincing for Steve to have two sets of spare keys made.

Nancy doesn’t like Steve’s taste in movies, she’s made that abundantly clear, so he usually ends up paying for Jonathan’s ticket and dragging him instead. Sometimes they can convince Nancy with the promise of extra snacks, but she’d begged off tonight. Something about not spending enough quality time with her parents when Steve’s sure the real reason is she gets enough _Hoosiers_ at home.

It’s nearly ten when their showing lets out so Steve doesn’t think it’s a huge leap to offer his place for Jonathan to crash.

Jonathan looks at him for a long time, considering the simplicity of the question. “Okay, let me just call Mom and let her know.”

At the house, he can hear Jonathan talking to Will in increasingly exasperated tones until he’s finally curious enough to poke his head into the small space adjoining living room and kitchen.

“Problem?”

Jonathan shakes his head, holding out the phone. “He wants to talk to you.”

Steve takes the receiver and answers without really processing. “Hello?”

“Steve?”

“Will?”

“Hi.”

“Um, hello?” Jonathan is staring at him, arms crossed, and thoroughly baffled. Steve shrugs. “Is something wrong?”

“No, no,” Will sounds flustered, “I just think I saw something... _weird_.”

Steve's hand tightens on the phone. Jonathan reacts almost immediately, taking a step forward in an obvious attempt to hear what Will’s saying. “You and I have seen some weird. Describe the weird.”

“Not that kind of weird. It’s just I think...no, I’m _positive_ I saw _Nancy_ walking in the woods, a little earlier.”

“What were you doing in the woods, Will?” Jonathan asks, face far too close. Steve pushes him away.

“I wasn’t in the woods!”

Steve makes a harsh hushing sound that goes a long way towards quieting both of the Byers siblings. “We believe you. But, uh, don’t go after her,” he adds for good measure.

“I won’t I’m not stupid!” Will says as though he thinks Steve might be, “I just thought she might be walking. Like you do sometimes. But just in case...well, I didn’t want to worry Mom, and you’re a cop.”

“Thanks, Will.” Jonathan’s already halfway to the door by the time Steve’s off the phone. Steve has to run to catch up. “I can’t go look for her without backup. Those woods are huge.”

“You’ve got backup.” Jonathan doesn’t stop walking until he reaches his car, and neither does Steve.

Because, goddammit, _of course_ he’s going to drop everything he’s learned since joining the department. It’s Nancy Wheeler and Jonathan Byers, and why did he become a cop if it wasn’t to run towards whatever danger they threw themselves at?

* * *

Steve’s expecting her to be shaken when they find her, closer to Gunther Street than the Byers’. This place doesn't have any good memories for her. But she’s standing there ramrod straight with an almost blinding smile.

“Nance?” Steve turns his flashlight to the foliage at their feet, careful not to spook her.

Jonathan looks a little scared himself, but he reaches out a hand to touch her wrist anyway.

Nancy jumps, like she’s only just noticed them. Then something in her face gives way, brow wrinkling and smile dissolving, and her knees fold under her. Steve takes a few steps forward and wraps his coat around her because, however she was before, she _is_ shaking now.

“Guys...can you take me home?”

They don’t know where home is, but they take her to Steve’s because it’s the closest empty house. Nancy doesn’t protest.

* * *

Nancy doesn’t tell them what happened on the drive home, leaving Jonathan and Steve to shoot worried looks at each other through the rearview mirror.

Eventually, Jonathan turns the volume up, and Steve lets the music roll over his thoughts. It's the middle of summer, and Nancy’s icy cold, wrapped up in his jacket and pressed into his side.

If it was something important, she’d let them know. Eventually.

Nancy disappears into the bathroom to shower and change. It’s almost midnight, but Jonathan pulls out a can of soup that Steve doesn’t remember buying from the back of one of his cabinets and turns the oven on high.

Jonathan and Steve eat straight from the big silver pot, waiting for Nancy to exit Steve’s bedroom, and after a while they both reach the same conclusion that she might not be.

Steve opens the door, and she’s curled up in the middle of the bed, looking halfway to sleep. He lifts a corner of the covers and joins her. She’s still chilly, even after the shower. “Jesus, Nance, how long were you out there?”

“Hm?” She opens an eye and shuts it a second later as though even that were too much. “A while. Little while.”

“Little while, right.” Steve situates one of the pillows more comfortably under her head but says nothing else.

“Jonathan, can you…?” She scoots closer to Steve leaving a space on the bed behind her. Jonathan shoots Steve a panicked look, and he shrugs.

“C’mon Byers, you heard the lady, it’s snugglin’ time.” Steve’s suddenly very glad he kept most of his clothes on. “Besides, you’ve shared a bed with me before. You know I don’t have cooties.”

Jonathan relaxes at the joke and crawls on the bed, not under the covers Steve notices, as though he’s afraid he’ll be tossed out at any moment.

The room is quiet, save their breathing and the occasional sniff from Nancy. It’s just a touch too awkward to be restful.

“...when did you two share a bed?” Nancy mumbles, face half squashed into the pillow and half into Steve’s chest. Over her shoulder, Steve sees Jonathan smile into his hand.

He tucks an arm under Nancy's pillow, and prays he doesn't talk in his sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come see updates and say hi to me on [tumblr](http://feoplepeel.tumblr.com)!


	8. See How I Fall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve would like to think Eleven just...walked home from the Upside Down. That maybe that’s something two years there had taught her to do. While Mike and his friends were off learning geometry, she was learning to carve a path through worlds. That the noises stopped because she made them; it was Eleven all along.
> 
> Maybe...maybe….
> 
> Maybe they _were_ waiting for something worse.

Will still has nightmares.

He’s too old to crawl into bed beside Mom, but he feels better waking up, breath sharp like needles kissing his lungs, and knowing she’s seen what he has. The day she came to rescue him from that place.

Last night he dreamed of a girl with a dimpled smile and straight hair to her shoulders. She walked him safely through the dark places in his mind, like Eleven...but she couldn’t have been. El’s voice was low and sweet. When this girl opened her mouth, it had sounded like so many snakes.

He carries his empty water glass to the kitchen, passing Jonathan’s equally empty room, and wonders if it’s too early in the morning to call and ask after Nancy. If there were a real problem, they would have radioed Hop, right?

His feet carry him outside for just a quick peek through his telescope while the moon’s still high and bright. He should have called Mike, he thinks. Nancy is his sister, and he’d want to know if…

Will drops his glass on the porch, the clatter of plastic tumbling and spinning out as the hinges of the porch door creak behind him.

He turns and yanks open the door before it can finish closing, running away instead of towards, years of hiding teaching him better.

Mom doesn’t keep her bedroom locked, even now, maybe especially now, and he runs to the side of the bed that he knows Hop sleeps on to shake him awake.

"Woah, kid," the man pulls what cover is there up to his chin, “what’s chasing you?”

And then he sits up because, where Will’s concerned, something _might actually be chasing him_.

“Eleven,” is all Will can manage between breaths, but it’s all Hop needs to hear, launching himself from the bed and, thankfully clothed, running full tilt towards the front door. Mom is at his back a second later, her hand steady on Will’s shoulder as they make their way onto the porch.

A girl Will's age, recognizable at this distance only by the fabric of her dress, is standing in their front yard looking small and lost.

“Shit.” Hop tears down the rest of the steps and throws his jacket around her as she collapses.

“Joyce! _Don’t_ call the hospital.” Will looks up to see his mother disappear into the house only to reappear a moment later, first aid kit held tight in her shaking hands. “Will, grab my radio. Alert the station. No, wait!” Will stops jogging towards the car and turns halfway round to face him. “Radio Harrington. You know Morse Code?”

 _Does he know Morse Code?_ Will would scoff if the situation were less immediate. “Yessir.”

“Okay, radio over message 10-1 then wait for whatever channel he sends you back. You just, uh, press the--”

“I got it, I got it.” Will doesn’t need Hop to explain how a _police scanner_ works. He's had his hands on the best radios in Indiana this year.

Besides the chief has more important things to do than teach him how to _press a button_ , he thinks, eyes flitting to Eleven, who looks like she can barely breathe.

Will jumps into the seat of the truck and palms the small radio. There's a flash of something to his left. Moonlight through the tree branches.

He stares into the woods for a second longer and shuts the door sliding to the passenger seat, just in case.

Then his heart rate picks up as he realizes what's going to happen after this. After Steve gets his tiny lines and clicks, after he tells Nancy, and she tells Mike, and Mike tells everyone else.

He looks out the window, and Eleven is looking back at him, unsure but _invariably there._

* * *

Steve wakes to a series of clicking noises from the side of his bed. He rolls over with a groan and looks at the clock.

 _4:00? What the hell, chief?_ He notices Nancy’s left at some point during the night, tries not to to think of the small amount of space that exists between he and Jonathan now and the book in his bedside dresser.

He rolls out of bed and reaches for the radio clipped to his jacket, thrown on the floor halfway between bed and closet.

He hears the code. 10-1. Change Location. He looks at Jonathan still asleep and decides that, even if whatever Hop's about to say can be repeated in front of him, it can at least wait until he's awake.

He sends back the channel number he’ll be switching to and lounges on the couch, jacket draped across his chest and waiting.

But it's not the chief.

“Uh,” a young boy’s voice breaks across the static and he recognizes it immediately.

“Will?”

* * *

“Jonathan.” Steve doesn't want to shake him by the shoulder, doesn't want to touch any part of him because he's dedicating a large portion of his brain to stopping himself from touching _every_ part of him.

“Jonathan, wake up.”

Jonathan finally blinks at him, sits up and looks around. Judging by the way he's looking at her spot on the bed, he seems to notice, in much the same way Steve had, that Nancy's not there.

“She takes off sometimes.” Steve pats the middle of the bed. “Doesn't like her folks to worry.”

He shrugs on his jacket, keeping his voice as level as possible.

“I just got called in. We need to go to your house.”

Jonathan is fully awake now and preternaturally still. Steve knows why immediately. The man's easy to read when it comes to his family.  

“It's not Will. They found Eleven. Or she found them.” Steve finally gives in, as his touch hungry self always does, and lays a hand against the side of Jonathan’s upper arm. “I'll get you some coffee.”

Jonathan nods a mute thanks. “Hey,” he croaks out before Steve can reach the door, “Eleven huh? Guess we were right.”

“Guess so.”

* * *

Nancy stumbles to the makeshift workstation Mike’s let her set up in the basement, head crowded with thoughts.

She drops the stabilizer on the table and sits heavily in the chair.

Getting it out hadn't been easy. Had Jonathan and Steve not found her when they did she may have been…

Her thoughts cut off in a yawn so wide her ears pop, and she buries her head into the crook of her elbow.

She stares at the device, mocking her from the edge of the table.

She had only removed one, an extraneous one judging by the readings it gave off, just to see how it functioned. But there had been more tears than she had thought. It should have shown up, there should have been evidence, more than a few dead animals. Now all the tears ran together like the final lurch of an earthquake rupturing them apart.

Big enough for a little girl to get through, yes. Big enough for…all sorts of things to get through.

She reaches out, turning the metal over in her hands. She'd tried to plant it back in the ground, but it's no longer humming with the same life.

Nancy is glad to be in her old bed for once. It’s comforting in its own way. Jonathan had told her the bad things couldn't get to her here.

Maybe she's wrong. El would come home, Mike would cry, Nancy would go back to California and find some way to clean the bigger mess she's made, and in the meantime, everyone would be safe.

If only her mind could actually believe that.

* * *

Will is waiting for them by Hop's truck when they get there, his hand resting lightly on Scuffer’s neck. With so many people watching his steps, he knows his younger brother’s on a recent streak of lashing out against anything he sees as over-protectiveness, so Jonathan struggles inwardly to not reach out for a hug as they walk over to him. But it's Will who meets them halfway, arms choking tight around the middle and squeezing the life out of Jonathan.

“She's inside,” he says when he pulls away. “I don't think she's hurt.”

“What are you doing out here?” Steve claps Will on the shoulder so hard he stumbles forward a little. Jonathan shoots him a dangerous look.

“Waiting for you guys.” He looks towards the woods. “I couldn't go back to sleep, and five’s a little early for breakfast.”

“Let's see what they need inside.”

Hop is on the porch, taking the steps without looking down, before they can make it more than a few steps.

“Perimeter search,” he tells them, pointing around the back of the house. “Will, with me. Harrington, you take--”

“Can I go with Jonathan?”

Hop takes a deep breath through his nose, eyes closing for a long moment before he answers. “Yeah, yeah, go with your brother. We’re looking for whatever...hole it is she might have crawled out of. The last one...well, it was big. As long as we don’t have one of those between this house and Cornwallis, I’ll go to my first shift happy. The rest we can work out later. C’mon, Harrington.”

“Hop,” Will stops him again. “What if...um…”

“You see anything _else_ , you radio me and run, got it?” He waits for Will to nod, then Jonathan. “Good. Now, _let’s go_.”

* * *

“Why’d you spend the night at Steve’s house?”

“What do you mean?” Jonathan purposefully avoids the shed. They’ll check that later _only_ if they have to. “I told you I had to crash. After the movie, remember?”

“Right, but it wasn’t _super_ late. You could have come home...if you wanted to.” He can just make out the last words. “It’s not like Nancy was there.”

“Is now really,” Jonathan pulls a branch down hard and steps further into the space behind their shed, eyes open and searching, “the best time to talk about this?”

Will shrugs, gazing in the opposite direction. He looks...upset.

Jonathan stares between his brother in front of him and the shed behind him. Tamps down on the same fear from this morning. Whatever he’s feeling must be ten times worse for Will.

“Sorry,” Jonathan runs a hand across the back of his neck, “I haven’t really been home a lot.”

“No, it’s okay!” Will almost shouts. He’s always been more in tune with other people’s feelings. _Certainly_ better at reading them than Jonathan. “I was just wondering…”

Jonathan stops walking because Will’s biting his lip. Something he only does when he’s nervous or lying, and either of those things are a bad sign to Jonathan.

“You’d tell me if you liked someone, right?” Will asks, and he sounds so earnest that Jonathan finds himself nodding without thinking too much about what’s being asked of him. “Like...Nancy?”

“Yeah, yeah, like Nancy,” Jonathan says and, even to his own ears, it sounds relieved. He ignores it and hopes Will does too, pushes forward instead. “And you’d tell me, right? If you liked someone.”

“Yeah, of course!” He nods quickly and starts walking again. “We should keep looking around. They’re going to beat us back and get worried.”

Jonathan smiles, reaching out a hand to muss his hair. “Cops, right?”

* * *

They find nothing between the house and Cornwallis nor back towards Gunther, when the sun’s high and they feel safe enough to venture that far into the woods. Steve leaves for work from the Byers’, and Jonathan’s left at the table with Will, biting his thumbnail and staring at the door to his room, left slightly ajar.

“She in there?” He nods at his room.

Hop places a glass of juice in front of Will who takes it with a small smile. “Conked out since we found her.”

“Can you blame the poor thing? Two years in that place.” His mom is leaning against the counter, smoking with a shaking hand. “Jesus Christ, Jim.”

He raises his hands, moving around the counter and into the living room. “You won’t hear an argument from me.”

“What’s the issue?” Jonathan lean his elbows on the table.

“Hop has a few questions.” Will snorts. “Mom doesn’t think he’s being very patient.”

“Probably just wants her to keep her eyes open,” Jonathan says, because it sounds better than he wants her to continue breathing. Will's brow furrows. “Doesn’t like to be reminded.”

Will presses his lips back into his cup. Hopper and their mom are still talking, more hushed now as though they’ve remembered the sleeping child a room over.

Hop’s good at splitting his attention between the door and his mom and the table where Will and he are sitting. Maybe it’s a cop thing. And Jonathan’s never seen his mother work around someone the way she does him, no stumbles or too-quick breaths. She’s still a bundle of nerves, he doesn’t think anyone could work that out of Joyce Byers, but she and the chief seem to stand in each other’s space like they exist in the same photograph.

Jonathan feels out of place in his old role, and more than a little useless if he’s being honest.

Then his mother turns to him and asks if he could make some eggs, please, because it’s almost breakfast, and for all of his charms, Jim Hopper hasn’t mastered a frying pan on their busted, old stove yet.

Jonathan nods and smiles. Not entirely useless, at least.

At some point, Hop looks at his watch and realizes he needs to show his face at work too.

Jonathan catches his mom’s quick glance at the door to his room before she speaks. “I'm taking the day. She's gonna need clothes.”

“Shit,” Hop runs a hand down his mouth, “you're right.”

She gives him a look that Jonathan's used to being on the receiving end of. A subtle blend of exasperation and _mother knows best_ that she'd perfected by the time he was ten _._ "I'll take her with me after she's gotten some rest but just the basics for now, yeah? Jonathan, Will, can you two make sure she's okay while I'm gone?”

Jonathan nods. Hop touches Will lightly on the shoulder.

“I’m not expecting you to keep this from your friends,” Hop levels a significant look towards Will, “but she _needs_ sleep.”

Will's entire countenance brightens, his smile stretching out across his face. “Got it.”

“We'll figure the rest of this out later.”

* * *

Nancy wakes up to Mike jumping at the end of her bed on his knees. For a moment all the nice thoughts she had last night flood to the front of her mind, and she thinks maybe she's done enough for a wish to come true. Nancy rubs her eyes, but she can finally pick apart what her brother is saying.

“She's still sleeping. I can go see her now, but I wanted you to--”

“What time is it?” Nancy can hear her jaw pop when she yawns.

“Ten.”

“Hm.” She looks at him. He's near vibrating with excitement. “You go ahead. I'll catch up.”

“Thanks, Nance.” He stops at the door, beaming at her like she hung the moon. “Whatever you and that guy did it worked. It really worked.”

“We’ll talk about it later, yeah?” She smiles back. “Go see your _girlfriend_.”

 _That_ hits a nerve. Mike's lip curls up.

“Don't be gross.” His face heats, and she crosses her arms refusing to look away. “I'm leaving now... _bye!”_

“Bye!” Nancy laughs at his flustered exit and prepares for the day.

* * *

 

She sees her mom folding clothes on the couch when she reaches the bottom of the steps. Holly’s helping, only the five year old’s version of help seems to be undoing whatever work her mother’s just done with very little effort and a whole lot of flair. She shows off an unfolded washcloth to Nancy, who claps a few times in approval.

“Nancy,” her mom plucks the washcloth from her youngest’s hand and folds it back into a neat square, “can you take her into the kitchen with you?”

“Sure.” Nancy shrugs. “C’mon, half-pint.”

She chuckles at the disapproving “Don’t call her that!” thrown at her back, picks up Holly to set her on the counter. Every time she comes back, her sister seems even more expressive. Nancy knows she can talk, hears her babbling to Mike all the time in that strange toddler talk she’s slowly shedding. She’s still shy around Nancy though, like she only half-knows her.

Curse of being away so much, she supposes.

She leans her elbows on the counter and watches Holly devour a stack of peanut butter-covered crackers, taking a few for herself. She knows she needs to give Ficken a heads up but when she cleans her fingers at the sink and dials the familiar number, there’s nothing to connect her, not even a ringing on the other end.

“Mom?” She presses down the button in the cradle of the phone. “I’m trying to get a call out to California. Can you check if I’m dialing the extension right?”

A few seconds later, Nancy is dialing again, under her mother’s instruction this time. “Who are you trying to call?”

“Someone from school.”

“A _friend_?” Her mom asks in a tone that begs Nancy to correct her.

So she does, though likely not the way she hopes. “A professor. I need to clear some things up about a paper.” Her mom shrugs, but at least this way she won't be confused by whatever Ficken and she are discussing when she inevitably spies on their conversation.

Except she’s called correctly, twice it seems, and the call still won't connect.

“Well that's funny.” Her mom takes the phone from Nancy and looks at it with open curiosity. “Sorry sweetie. I'll call the phone company later.”

“It’s okay, Mom,” Nancy assures her. “Just extra credit stuff anyway.”

But her stomach’s in knots. She wishes she’d eaten more than a peanut butter cracker, and she’s silently grateful when her mom starts taking out things for a more filling lunch.

What if she didn’t need to call Ficken? What if he already knew? Maybe she’s been cut off, or worse, DARPA’s founds out about what they’ve been doing, and they’re both in trouble.

That’s ridiculous, though. Surely someone would be here.

_Unless they’re watching you._

No, she takes a deep breath, don’t be paranoid.

But...she read all the fairytales, she knows the rules. Wishes always come with some price.

She should go see Eleven.

She sits beside Holly and lets the girl use a black pen to draw a cat on her arm instead.

* * *

“They finally caught that bear that's been causing so much trouble.”

Since joining the department, Callahan seemed to find a particular delight in coming up behind Steve and speaking _very loudly_ when he wasn’t paying attention, or filling out reports...or half asleep as was now the case.

To his credit, Steve only jumped _a little_ , breathed deep and ignored Deputy Powell’s laughter from across the room. “Bear?”

“Sure, the one who was doing in all the animals around here?” Callahan raises his mug to his lips. “Terrence Jr.’s been up in arms about it all winter. “

“Must have been hibernating.” Powell chimes in.

Steve thinks about Nancy’s forest sojourn and Eleven’s sudden appearance, and something tugs in his gut, even if none of it makes sense in his head.

“Sure. Hibernating.”

“Boy, you’re talkative today.” Callahan’s eyes are drawn to the sound of the bell at the door. “Hey, chief! The Terrence brothers shot a bear.”

“Jesus,” Hop speaks around the cigarette in his mouth. He looks about as worn down as Steve feels.

“Rangers are pissed.” Powell opens up his paper, not even pretending to work. But, then, what work is there in Hawkins to people out of the loop? “Apparently, it's tagged.”

Hop shoots Steve a look.

“Tagged bears are tracked bears.”

“Well, it was picking around their fruit trees. So,” Callahan shapes his hand into a pistol and pretends to shoot. Hop stands by the door, at the barrel end of Callahan’s false gun and looking distinctly unimpressed.

“That's because bears are foragers. A bear’s not what's been killing all those animals. But I'm sure those Terrence boys feel like big men with a bear skin rug on their floor.” Hop takes the cigarette from his mouth, stubbing it out in a nearby tray before Flo and her sharp nails can reach him. “Harrington, you're with me on patrol.”

“Yes, chief.”

“Don’t look so glum, Harrington.” Callahan slaps his shoulder as he moves to stand, “I know you’ll miss 10-45 detail, but don’t worry. We’ve got plenty of other grunt work for you.”

“ _Ha ha_.”

* * *

“You need to tell me anything?” Hopper asks after they’ve driven for a while in silence.

“What do you mean?”

“That was a _knowing_ look you gave me in there.”

“Just thinking that I agree with you, about the bear,” Steve tacks on in case it’s unclear, “I mean, all things considering.”

The corner of Hop’s lips twist up for half a second in what might be a smile. “Nothing unusual on your patrols?”

“Well, I did hear this rumor about a girl who appeared out of thin air.” Hop gives him a wry look. “But, no, nothing before that. No more noises or...weird feelings. Don’t you think it’s weirder that they've all stopped?”

“I was going to say the same thing.” Hop makes a frustrated sound at the back of his throat. “Can you finish out here? I got phone calls to make.”

Steve nods, but he can’t help the look he tosses at the chief.

“The girl has a mother,” Hop explains slowly, and Steve’s eyebrow raises to his hairline. “I’d like to make sure everything’s...on the level before I rope her back into all of this.”

After what happened last time, Steve gets it.

Hop drops him back at the station, and Steve winds his way to his own patrol car. He’s sure Hop knows more than he’s letting on, because the man’s an unusually anxious asshole at the best of times, but lately he’s been downright ornery (thank you, Nancy’s word-of-the-day calendar Christmas present).

Steve would like to think Eleven just...walked home from the Upside Down. That maybe that’s something two years there had taught her to do. While Mike and his friends were off learning geometry, she was learning to carve a path through worlds. That the noises stopped because she made them; it was Eleven all along.

Maybe...maybe….

Maybe they _were_ waiting for something worse.

He pulls up to the curb where Hop is smoking, out of view from Flo’s corner window.

“No need to look a gift horse in the mouth, right?” He leans an elbow out of the window and smiles. “This is Hawkins. Bad things can’t _always_ happen.”

“I wanna believe that’s true.” Hop smiles back, tightly, around his cigarette. “Be careful, Harrington.”

“Me? Oh, always!”

* * *

Nancy spends all day at the library. She doesn’t know what she’s looking for, but she pulls down every science book heavier than Holly, anyway, and leaves around eight feeling more hopeless than when she’d come in.

She doesn’t remember ever losing this much sleep, even right after Barb and the standoff at the Byers’. The nights where she had to walk down all of Cherry and Oak until her feet were sore. When she’d come back and her mother wouldn't yell, just look at her with those long lines around her lips like she was going to cry. She still got punished, but at least the walking had put her to sleep.

It doesn't help now.

* * *

Eleven’s been sleeping on and off through the day, but Mike manages to talk to her when her eyes are open.

Her hair is longer and a lighter brown than he pictured. She's wearing Will's pajamas. They’re a little small on her. She seems to prefer the worn comfort of Will’s to the starch newness of what Joyce bought her, still tagged and folded in a bag at the end of Jonathan’s bed.

Dustin and Lucas are a little less conscientious of El’s energy level, but Mike can’t really blame them. He’s just as excited, and Lucas argues that if she really wanted them out of the room, she’d toss them out herself.

The two of them leave around six for dinner. Mike calls his mother and tells her he’ll eat with Will. Joyce isn’t home from her shift, but Jonathan can cook and Mike’s not leaving El until...well he’s not sure. He’s a little afraid of what will happen if he _does_ leave now.

At least Will will be here to keep an eye on her.

She stays awake longer, looking at them with brighter eyes, at night and after the food. She looks comfortable and happy as long as Mike keeps her in his sights, but he still feels the need to reassure her. Something around the edges of her smile, maybe, that makes him uneasy.

“The lab’s gone, mostly,” he adds the last because, _legally speaking_ he doesn’t think that’s really true. “And there’s no gate to worry about this time. Neat, huh?”

“You don’t know that.” Will lowers his voice, looking at the door, then back at Mike.

“No, you guys, _trust me_.” Mike raises his hands in supplication. “Nancy explained everything.”

“Nancy?”

“You remember my sister?” Mike asks, and the sudden realization that it’s been almost _two years_ since Eleven...disappeared hits him like a fresh blow. What if she doesn’t remember Nancy? What if she doesn’t remember...what if she’s not okay? They’ve been talking to her about everything she’s missed on television, their latest campaigns, trying to keep her calm, sure, but ultimately worthless. There’s so much he hasn’t thought about.

But then Eleven smiles and says, “Pretty,” and a tight ball uncurls in his stomach.

“Right.” He nods and smiles back. “Anyway Nancy says it’s not a gate, not really. It works like a funnel,” his brow creases, “no, _no_ , a sieve. Keeping you on one side, the Upside Down, and us on the other. She must have figured out a way to get you across. Make you read as one of us!”

He’s not too thrilled Nancy struck out on her own after she _promised_ , but Eleven is shaking her head, and Mike suddenly isn’t so focused on that.

“No…,” Mike narrows his eyes, “you’re _not_ one of us?”

“Not me,” Eleven says solemnly, “ _It_.”

Mike looks toward the door, then at Will, lowering his voice. “There are _more_ monsters?”

Eleven nods, breathing heavily through her nose.

“Thessalhydra,” Will says, quietly, from his spot in the corner. “Cut off one head…”

Mike looks from his shadowed face to Eleven’s wide open one. She nods, just once.

"I saw one, late last night.” Will’s lips pull together in a tight line. “This morning, whatever, right after El came out of the woods. It's big. Bigger than the Demogorgon."

Mike’s breath catches at the thought. He swallows hard. “Are you...okay?”

“Yeah,” Will blinks, his pinched expression easing into a grin. “I thought it was an animal, but I knew because...it felt the same.”

Mike sits on the edge of the bed. “If something was following you, why did it stop?”

"Night." Eleven's face is pale.

"Night?"

She points over his shoulder, and Mike follows the path of her finger, out the window to the now high moon. Will walks over, leaning against the sill.

“It was still out when we found you. Maybe whatever it was wasn't ready to eat yet,” he says, and Eleven nods. "Diurnal predators hunt during the day."

"Like bears." They all jump at the sound of Hop's voice from the door. “Hey, kids. You rested?”

Eleven nods and waggles ten fingers, then ten toes at him, and the gesture must be significant because Hop grins at her.

“All together then.” Hop turns to him, and Mike reaches down to grab El’s hand as a reflex. “Mike, can I see you outside for a second?”

Mike feels Eleven squeeze his hand before he lets go and follows the man out.

“Is your sister at home right now?”

Mike’s quiet for a moment. “She’s probably at Steve’s.” And his tone probably conveys what his words don’t.

Hop’s looking out into the woods like he’s frustrated with something. Well, more than usual.

“Are we, um, in trouble?”

Hop raises his eyebrow. “We might be, kid.”

* * *

Nancy recognizes the truck that pulls up alongside her as she makes her way back home.

“Chief?” She peeks into the window. “Is everything okay? Oh my god is Steve--”

“Harrington’s fine,” he growls, “I’m pretty sure. This isn’t about him. Get in.”

“Not the most _polite_ way to offer me a ride home...but thanks, I guess.” Because if her mom's going to chew her out for not calling about missing dinner, she might as well show up with the chief of police to put her off a while.

“So,” she says into the tense silence, “it’s really late for you to be cruising around--”

“What did you do, Wheeler?”

“What?” She laughs.

“Don’t.” He laughs too, but it’s not a happy sound at all. “Don’t start with that.”

Nancy considers not saying anything because no one’s caught her yet, no one’s asked any questions. Then she remembers that Mike’s been with Eleven all day, and she doesn’t know where the chief’s been. But he’s _here_ now...and he’s just stopped the truck, and he’s staring at her, ignoring the green light in front of them.

“I...I was recruited.”

It all spills out of her, the whole story, from meeting Ficken to pulling the Department of Energy’s beacon from the ground.

“And now I don’t know how to _fix_ it.” She’s fighting frustrated tears. “The library, the only one worth a damn, is in California, and Ficken won’t take my calls. Or, I don’t know, maybe he’s compromised. Maybe he’s _dead_!” She swallows a sob. “He helped me pull as much info on El as he could, but if something like this pinged DARPA’S radar, I’m pretty sure I’m on my own now.”

 _And without their resources, there’s no way I’ll be able to close the rift I’ve opened._ She doesn’t say that much out loud, but then, she doesn’t think she has to at this point.

Hop doesn’t speak for a while. “You...that was _reckless_ and...and--”

“Oh, I don’t need to hear this _bullshit_ from you!” She takes rough swipes at her cheeks. “From _you_ who...I had access to the DoE files, you know!” She watches him pale and feels a little guilty. Only a little. “No wonder you’re trying so hard.”

“Jesus, you’re just a kid…” He sighs, and he sounds so exhausted. Nancy clenches her fists in her lap. “Fine, we can’t use your resources? We’ll use mine.”

She snorts, glad at least that the _other_ matter’s been dropped from the conversation. “No offense, but the combined efforts of the Hawkins city library and your police department don’t inspire me with much confidence.”

He reaches into his wallet and pulls out a keycard that looks too familiar.

Nancy stares at the symbol, her brain needing longer to process the _Department of Energy_ logo than her eyes. “You,” she stares at him, jaw dropping, “you put them there?”

“Do I look like a scientist to you?” He takes the card back. “No. I was just meant to keep an eye on them. In exchange, if Eleven came back...well…”

“She’s with us.”

“That’s the long and short of it.”

Nancy stares straight ahead. “When I said you were trying, I didn’t know that you were--”

“I know.”

“So you were supposed to keep an eye on the rift stabilizers, huh?” She can’t help being a little smug at this.

“Yeah, laugh it up, Wheeler.” He grips the steering wheel tighter and, at the sight of a car behind him, passes through the light. “Something came out, after Eleven. That’s the other thing I came to talk to you about.”

“Can’t Eleven--”

“I don’t want her going anywhere near _anything_ that came out of that place,” he cuts her off. “I don’t want any of the kids wrapped up in this again. I shouldn’t even be asking you, but...well, you’re already knee deep in the muck, so...”

She nods in understanding. She doesn’t want Mike getting any ideas either. “Thoughts?”

“Glad you asked,” he says as they make the turn into her neighborhood. “First, we close it. I can get another one of those stabilizers if we need, but it looks like this job’s going to be bigger. Tell me what you need to make something strong enough to close the hole you opened up.”

“So you know a little bit about how it works at least,” she mutters, brain already back on track and working double pace.

“I know it feels like we’re trying to duct tape the Titanic. That about right?”

“You’re not wrong…”

They don’t speak again until he’s parked outside her house. Her mother’s at the door, confused and worried and tapping her foot impatiently.

“Anything else?”

“Hunting I can do, but tracking a thing like that?” Hop looks a little lost. “Can you make something to track a creature like...like what came out the last time?”

“Just give me an idea of what I’m looking for,” Nancy jumps from the truck and closes the door behind her, “and I’ll make it happen.”

* * *

Jonathan leaves the kids as soon as his mom gets home because, as much as he loves his brother’s friends, being in a house with the four (five, he corrects) teenagers all day was...taxing.

“Looks like you’re bunking with me again tonight,” Steve tells him, and Jonathan thinks, _I don’t have to_. But he doesn’t say anything because even sharing a bed with Steve is better than the thought of sleeping on their couch, almost as old as he is.

 _You don’t have to share a bed, idiot_ , he swallows and sticks his head into the fridge for a soda. **_His_ ** _couch isn’t ancient and liable to eat you._

_But if he’s offering…_

Don’t think about it.

Think about...moving in together.

_What?_

Well, Jonathan might have to offer his room to Eleven on a more permanent basis. They don’t want to move her too much, and she seems comfortable at the Byers. Besides, he’s spent enough nights so far away from home that it’s not strange waking up in a bed he doesn't consider his, and it’s not like he has to stay at a hotel.

And Steve has a nice spare room, underneath all the mess. He’s already given Jonathan a key. It’d only be for summers and breaks, not any different from now. How much room would he need? Space for his albums and what few clothes he has, that box of Nancy's stuff...

 _Nancy_. He would never have to time his visits again. He could see Nancy all the time. He could see Nancy _and_ Steve all the time.

“You okay, man?” Steve closes the door of the fridge. Jonathan’s not sure how long he’s been standing in front of it.

It belatedly occurs to him, by the quickness of his breath and the press of his fingernails against the tips of his fingers, he _may_ be freaking out. A little.

“Yeah. Long day.” He pops open his soda and does not look at Steve’s neck or jaw or smiling mouth which leaves him looking...back at his soda. “No Nancy?”

“I stopped by her house today.” Steve moves around him for a glass and turns on the tap, “Karen said she had a paper due.”

“ _Karen_?”

“What?” He laughs, glass halfway to his mouth.

“I'm ‘Byers,’ but Nancy's _mom_ gets the first name treatment?” Jonathan raises a brow. “I thought we were friends.”

“Shut up, I call you Jonathan.”

Steve pushes at Jonathan’s shoulder, and Jonathan looks up from his soda which is a bad idea, he quickly discovers, as he's _not done freaking out yet._

Because it  _has_ been a long day, and at the end of it, when he should be allowed to go to his room, settle his headphones around his ears, and fall asleep, he’s dealing with Steve.

Steve who talks too much about baseball and new movies and a list of other things Jonathan can't find it in himself to care about. But Jonathan had, at some point, started to find these things oddly charming about Steve. The same Steve who probably can't name all the planets but is fascinated with space. Whose mom makes amazing cakes that take three days and more than three types of alcohol and who probably has just as many issues with his father, but Jonathan would never know because every time he asks, Steve wants to make sure he's not asking because something's wrong with _him_.

Abrasive Steve, quick tempered and quick to judge.

Steve who keeps all of the postcards Jonathan's sent him next to his bed and thinks he has no idea.

Jonathan's pushed down so many thoughts about Steve; they were bound to come back sudden, like a storm. An unbearable fondness that he's looking after his family, jealousy over whatever it was he had with Aaron, that warm feeling whenever he kisses Nancy high on her cheek, and she tries not to giggle.

Happy that they're happy. Happy that he's there. Immediate emptiness that he pushes away, buries, because he knows he wants it. All of it.

“I don't understand you, Steve Harrington,” he says because it's easier than saying he doesn't understand himself.

“And yet you find yourself strangely drawn to me.” Steve gulps too loudly and sets his cup aside. “I know, I've heard it before. It's like a disease.”

“You're not remotely my type.” Jonathan forces a laugh past his lips.

“I feel like it would be against your essential...you-ness to have a type.”

“My me-ness?”

“Yeah.” Steve’s grinning, but it looks near feral from the way the florescent lights in his kitchen hit the side of his face. “You know you're not exactly an open book, Jonathan _Byers_.”

Jonathan only shrugs at that. Of all things he copped to being, transparent was never one of them. Steve’s grin vanishes, and he runs a hand along the bottom of his face, across his mouth and up along his jaw and all the other places Jonathan doesn’t want to look right now.

“I know I’m hard to get along with...well, it’s hard for _you_ to get along with me. Everyone else seems to love me. But I mean, you know you’re, like, _important_ to me, right?”

Jonathan tries not to laugh, but he was already feeling raw and he wasn’t expecting _this_ on top of it, so he bites down on a small smile. “Wow, that much emotion was really hard for you.”

Instead of the punch or push Jonathan’s expecting, Steve only manages a step forward, still too far in Jonathan’s space (but what’s new). “You’re important to me. The whole _reason_ I even thought to be a cop, to do more, was a cheap promotional project, one you _hated_ by the way. I kept all your postcards, actually, and...and…”

“Steve?” Jonathan doesn’t want to _touch_ him, but he’s breathing too quickly, and he won’t look at him which...isn’t like Steve at all.

“And I want to do dumb things like hold your hand,” Steve says on the end of a shallow exhale. “I can’t listen to that _stupid_ band without needing to jerk off in the shower, and I think it might be because I--”

Jonathan can’t listen to anymore, leans forward and presses his lips against Steve’s for just a second, not even long enough for the other man to close his eyes. Jonathan stares into one eye then the other. He could have had something with that guy...Aaron. He can have something with Nancy.

_Will I want him this much tomorrow? Ten years from now?_

He steps away, out of Steve’s space, and coughs. Steve finishes his water like Jonathan hadn’t just kissed him.

“Don’t say that kind of thing.”

“What?” Steve’s smiling around the rim of his glass. “What did you _think_ I was going to say?”

Jonathan stares at his feet until Steve retreats to the bedroom.

He finishes his soda and makes his way to the bedroom, leaving his jacket draped over the arm over the couch. He can hear Steve brushing his teeth and he, briefly, considers turning back to sleep on the couch. But after everything Steve had said…

_Besides, you’ve shared a bed with me before._

He stares at the foot of the bed, covered in sheets that shouldn’t be as familiar as they already are.

Sharing a bed...why did it never occur to him, how unusual that was?

“Byers,” Steve pokes his head out of the bathroom, holding out the spare toothbrush for him. “ _Te quiero_.”

Jonathan straightens, taking it. Steve so rarely speaks Spanish, and usually only to impress Nancy. “Is that...toothbrush?”

Steve nearly chokes from laughing and spits into the sink. Jonathan shoots him a questioning look.

“Sure, it’s toothbrush,” he says with his usual good nature, and reaches across the sink for the floss.

* * *

Nancy sneaks out once her parents are asleep. They’ll know where she’s been tomorrow, but after her dad’s minor freakout post-NYU spring break visit, she cares a little less. Besides, her mom thinks Steve Harrington can do no wrong for some reason she has yet to figure out.

She uses her key to get into Steve’s and sits at the end of the bed. Jonathan’s up like a shot.

“Nancy? You okay?”

“Just thinking too much. Thought seeing a couple of idiots would help stop this noise.” She points to her head.

Jonathan seems to relax. Maybe it was calling them idiots that did it. “You been to see Eleven yet?”

“No, not yet. Mike’s sleeping over at your place now, of course. Will needs to be careful, or he might have a permanent roommate.”

“Well, look at the poor example you’ve set.”

A small chuckle escapes her, shoulders shaking a little at the release. She takes a deep breath and lets her eyes rake across the bed. “You two look _comfortable_.”

“Less talking, more sleeping,” Steve turns over to plant his face in the pillow before Jonathan can even open his mouth. “Some people do have work tomorrow.”

She turns to hear what it was Jonathan had to say, but he’s already settling back down and looking anywhere but at her.

She falls between them and stares at the ceiling instead.

* * *

The second time Nancy wakes up squished between Jonathan and Steve, she knows it’s going to be something they need to talk about.

Except not this morning because Steve has work, and Jonathan’s already halfway out the door to check on his family. Which includes Eleven for now, she guesses.

And she has her own mess to sort out.

 _Tonight. We’ll...talk about it tonight,_ she thinks, sticks her head into the freezer for a moment to stave off the heat that the kitchen window doesn’t help.

“So did you two...?” she trails off, hands him a glass of water.

“Uh, no,” Steve chuckles, but the tips of his ears are red, “there would have been _considerably_ less clothing.”

“But you said something?”

Steve looks uncomfortable. “Kind of? He seemed a little freaked. Yesterday was _big_ , you know?”

She rolls her eyes and drinks from her own glass. “How do you think this ends, Steve?”

He grins, wolfish, and sets his cup on the counter. “You and me and him, same bed...and like I said, _considerably less clothing_.”

She presses a finger against his lips before he can lean further in to kiss her. “I didn’t ask you to fantasize for me.”

“Fine.” He pulls away and turns to the sink to wipe out his glass. “Jonathan can't look at me for about a year, which is conveniently timed since he’ll be back in New York soon, then he gets over it and asks me to be the best man at your wedding,” he says as though he’s prepared for this answer. “It’ll be beautiful, by the way. I’m thinking...light blue and orange?”

“...you don't want to marry me?”

The question seems to catch him off guard. “I hadn’t really thought about it.” His brows draw together. “Marriage, that is.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

 _Jesus,_ she leans against a wall, watches him disappear into his room to grab his hat and belt. _None of us knows what the other wants do we?_

Yes, they’d need to have a long talk.

Steve holds the door open for her on the way out, he towards the station and she towards Mirkwood.

Tomorrow, she promises herself. They’ll talk tomorrow.

* * *

She sticks the new stabilizer, made with inferior but still lovely parts, into the ground the week before she’s set to go back to Pasadena, just as the start of August turns the leaves brown. If Steve or Jonathan notice anything unusual about her behavior, they don’t mention it. But they might be used to her odd hours and need for privacy by now. If there’s one thing she can say for both of them, it’s that they know when she needs her space. Besides, maybe they’re too busy stepping around one another to notice anything she’s been up to.

And hadn’t she counted on that level of distraction since they started whatever strange mating ritual they set themselves on?

She and Hop watch through a device she’s rigged as the energy spikes then dies down.

“I guess that means it worked?” Nancy’s almost surprised to see Hopper smiling down at her. But when you’ve avoided an iceberg, even the stoic captain can risk celebration.

“Everything looks normal to me.” Nancy stands with a grunt. “Well...Hawkins-normal. It reads the way it did before I touched it.”

Hop gives a satisfied nod.

“Now, about this monster.”

“That’s assuming we’re looking for _one_. Eleven won’t say if there’s more,” Hop sighs. “But Will called it something, like there might be. Here’s the one he saw. Day hunter, big.” He hands her a picture, folded in his back pocket and rendered in beautiful detail. Will’s gotten better.

The creature’s large and grotesque, and Nancy turns her eyes from the picture quickly. “Will...got close enough to see this?”

“Between you and me, I think he dreamed about it,” Hop lowers his voice. “His mom says he’s not really slept the same since everything.”

Nancy nods. She doesn’t want to go back to school, not with this _thing_ possibly still out there. But California has the equipment she needs. And...part of her, the part that still clings to a picture of Barb, _has_ to find out what happened to Ficken.

“Not sure how a picture’s going to help, but…”

“It can’t hurt,” she offers, folding it back up and sticking it into her own pocket. “You’ll keep Steve out of trouble?”

Hop tips his hat up to scratch at his hairline, a brief flash of annoyance passing across his face that Nancy’s familiar with in regards to Steve. “You and your boys seem to go looking for it.”

“My,” Nancy feels her throat go dry, “my boys?”

“Sure,” Hop’s brow furrows, “Harrington, your brother...trouble, both of them.”

“Oh,” Nancy laughs. “Mike, right.”

“Uh-huh,” Hop stares at her like she’s said too much. She might have.

Except the rest of the week passes, and she’s said nothing to Jonathan and Steve. They’ve been waiting for an explanation, since finding her in the woods, and it finally hits her that she might never work up the courage to give them one. She feels like she’s dug herself into a hole. If she tells them point C, she’ll have to explain points A and B. Everything she’s been hiding since she left for California.

No, further, since Barb died.

And what about the risk to _them_ , some part of her argues. Her mantra, the excuse she falls back on when the lie proves too much.

It almost seems easier to avoid them entirely, while she fixes a Hawkins she had to break to save.

So she does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Drawing by the amazing and super talented [Liz](http://goddamnrey.tumblr.com)! Go find her other stuff at her [Tumblr](http://goddamnrey.tumblr.com) :D
> 
> In other news, everyone's been so lovely keeping up with this fic and leaving brilliant comments, so I just want to let all of you know that I'll be on vacation for the next week and unlikely to respond to much until 9/10. The next chapter should be posted shortly after. Thank you all very much <3!


	9. Sparkle the Dark Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Hey, hey,” Jonathan speaks soft like he’s at church, the way Steve and Nancy used to whisper in the darkroom at high school those few months before they split to other sides of the states. “Nancy’s worried sick. I am too, so if you could just...wake up?”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'd by the lovely [tetrahedrals](http://archiveofourown.org/users/tetrahedron)!

Steve’s on desk duty for the third week since Nancy and Jonathan have gone back to college.

Despite not taking anymore late night strolls (he’s protective, not suicidal), he still thinks it might have to do with keeping him out of the woods after everything that happened a few weeks back. Hop says it’s because if anything strange _does_ happen, Steve will be the only one to believe it.

For Steve’s part, he’s sick of it. He left his dad’s company to get _away_ from a job like this.

“All right! Popcorn and...what is this?” He examines the cover of the movie case, eyes narrowed. “Ladyhawke?”

“You’ll like it,” Will says.

“Oh, come on, have you guys already seen this?”

“Three times.” Eleven nods, shoving a handful of popcorn into her mouth.

Eleven is...a kid, like Mike and Will and Lucas and Dustin. He can’t understand her half of the time, and that’s no different from those kids either. He doesn't know why he’s shocked.

Well that's a lie. It's the psychic-trapped-in-another-world thing. He'd expected more pizzazz maybe. From the way Mike talked about her, at least.

There _are_ little signs. Her too long silences, and stares that seem to go through him. The way she looks at the door, sometimes, worried and frightened. He’s seen that ready to bolt look on criminals but never _children..._ at least not children in Hawkins.

He knows the bags under the chief’s eyes have more to do with _that_ situation now. He guesses it's a good thing to be worried about the sudden acquisition and care of a fourteen year old girl...but he also knows Social Services needs to be called in at some point. It’s the third Thursday that Joyce and the chief have asked him to look after Eleven and Will after school (for Will, at least, as enrolling Eleven would introduce an entirely new set of problems). The newest child resident of Hawkins has been staying at his place more than she ought to while the adults play meetup with a woman named Terry Ives.

Steve doesn’t think he’s supposed to know that last part, but he _is_ a cop. As far as he’s concerned, Joyce and the chief are just having a nice night in. Hopper’s his boss so he keeps a tight lid on it, lets them work out whatever it is they’re picking apart amongst themselves.

 _Adult relationships_ , Hop had said. Steve lets his eyes rest on Eleven for a second longer, staring at the blank television and chewing popcorn with a faraway expression.

 _I need to call my mom...._ The thought hits him heavy like a fist to the sternum.

“Can you just play it already?” Will is pointing at the VHS player. Putting him in the same house as Eleven had made the teen more talkative, somehow.

“Fine but next time let me pick. Clearly you two can’t be trusted alone.”

Eleven stares at him, eyebrow raised and a smile curling her lips. “No.”

* * *

Next week, Steve's boring routine is thrown off-balance by the sight of _Lonnie Byers_ sitting in the middle of the station.

Steve makes a beeline for the coffee pot where Flo is standing next to Powell. Both are doing a decent job at pretending not to see the man.

“What's he doing here?”

“Says he wants to see the chief,” Powell pours Steve a cup. “He won't speak to a Deputy, and I'm happy to oblige him on that account.”

“Call him, I guess.” Steve says to Flo. “No matter what it is he wants, I'm sure Hop’ll want to hear about it.”

She cuts a glance at Lonnie. “Folks say he's been skulking around town lately, asking a lot of questions.”

The inconvenient kind, Steve bets.

Steve winds his way through the desks towards his own and motions for Lonnie to follow.

“How can the Hawkins police department help you today, sir?”

“I told your deputy I want to talk to Hopper.” Lonnie sits in front of Steve’s desk, regardless, and waits while Steve pulls out papers seemingly at random.

One thing that _had_ carried over from his old job; looking busy in uncomfortable situations. Those cropped up frequently when one worked with one’s father.

“Aren’t you Harrington’s kid?”

“That’s me.” Steve arranges the nameplate on his desk where the surname is obviously displayed. “I’m sure Deputy Powell explained that the chief takes all of Hawkins' citizens, former or otherwise, very seriously. So, while we wait, would you like to explain to _me_ what’s going on?”

“Didn’t my boy rearrange your face?”

Steve has heard stories about Lonnie, but he _knows_ only three facts. Lonnie drinks, Lonnie is Jonathan and Will’s biological father, and Lonnie knows how to shoot.

These three things, combined with the knowledge that Hop is out at the Byers on what is _supposed_ to be his day off, lead him to one conclusion: _tread carefully_.

“Yes he did,” Steve smiles because Lonnie probably doesn't expect him to, the way one does to indulge crying toddlers, “ages ago, but more to the point--”

“Yeah, Gene told me about it. Well, warned me was more like. Said I should keep watch for a letter from your old man.” He points at Steve, finger wagging in the air as though they’re sharing some private joke. “Never came though.”

“Well you know lawyers,” Steve moves the papers to face Lonnie, and sets a pen on top of them. “Paperwork can take _years_.”

“What's that supposed to mean, son?”

“Just that people like my father tend to strike when you're not expecting it.” Steve’s smile tightens until he feels like he should _hear_ his jaw creak. “And I know it must be hard to keep track but, uh, I'm not your son.”

He can see Lonnie’s own jaw, bone working beneath the flesh in a hard grind as he pushes away from the desk.

Steve _does_ have a knack for pissing off the Byers men.

A cough interrupts whatever Lonnie starts to say. Flo is approaching his desk with a look she reserves for impatient civilians (most often employed when they can't see her). “Harrington, you have a call.”

“Um,” Steve looks between Flo and Lonnie, still standing over his desk. Lonnie cracks first, arms raised in a placating gesture.

“I got better ways to handle this.” Lonnie tips a small nod to Flo as he passes her, and Steve can tell by the look on her face she likes how _that_ sounds as little as he does. “You folks have a good afternoon.”

“I thought he wanted to speak to Hop.” She says, when he's gone.

“Must not have been too important.”

Only Steve worries that it _is_. Just not the kind of important that crawls out of ceilings from other dimensions. This kind of important is the sinister sort that sneaks up in the real world when you've gotten too lost in your own head and forgotten: other people are there too, and they're watching you.

“You said I have a call?”

“Your mother,” Flo says, half worried, half disapproving. His hands are only a little shaky when he picks up the phone, watching the blinking orange light go steady beside the receiver.

"Mamá?”

“Steve!” His mother sounds like she’s shouting over a great deal of noise. He can make out the muffled sound of voices and mingled laughter coming through the line.

“Mamá, I told you, we can’t take personal calls here--”

“This isn't personal, es asunto de la policia.”

She’s been doing that since Christmas, slipping Spanish into some of their private conversations. It was like showing up at Mass had been some secret permission. Steve hates to think the whole reason she had ever stopped had been him but it’s not hard to see the connection. He had been an asshole in high school.

“Policia...aren’t you still in Montreal?” He rubs his forehead. “Did Dad do something illegal?”

“No! Why would you even think such a thing...besides, if your father did something the police would never hear about it,” she tacks on with a tinkling laugh.

Steve lifts a shoulder. He’d believe it. “Then what is it?”

“More animals! The Cutty’s daughter, _very pretty girl_ ,” his mother adds suggestively and Steve fights to keep his expression in check even though she's not there to witness it, “she’s been looking after our house. Says they’re all over the backyard!”

“Dead ones?”

“ _Of course,_ dead ones, Steven!” He winces at the use of his full name. “If they were alive I would be on the phone with the exterminator, not the police!”

“Exterminators don't get rid of deer…”

“Apparently neither do the police.” She scoffs. “Or were you just trying to make me feel better when you said your people already took care of this?”

“It was more of a Wildlife and Fisheries thing,” he tilts his head back to stare at the white ceiling of the station. “Look I'll go over and check it out myself.”

“I know you will.” She sounds pleased. “You work so hard. I told your father, see how hard he works?”

“ _Thanks,_ Mamá.”

“He only worries because...the money, you know?” She asks, her voice strained. “How much did you say you make again?”

“I didn't.” He bites his lip not knowing whether he wants to smile or shout. In the end, he does both. “Love you, bye!”

He hangs up and, before he can think better of it, dials Jonathan's number. Personal calls rule bedamned.

He picks up after three rings, and it's only after the quiet _Hello_ that Steve remembers it's Jonathan and they had never quite talked past the whole…

Well there was no other word for it except _kiss_. If Steve thought himself the champion of avoiding awkward situations, Jonathan's absolute refusal to acknowledge even that much had crowned him the damn  _king._

 _Push forward, Harrington, you're a goddamn adult_ , he thinks. His inner voice sounds oddly like the chief.

“Hey, Jonathan, it’s Steve,” he says and, before Jonathan can say anything, rushes on. “Listen, have you talked to your dad recently?”

Jonathan makes a few aborted noises before settling on a worried-sounding, “No. I don't even think he knows I'm in school.”

 _Ouch_ , Steve winces.

“Why, what's going on?”

Steve lets his gaze wander to the blank paper on his desk. He wonders how much he should tell Jonathan. “He...stopped by the station. I think he's looking into your mom.”

The sound of something dropping comes through the line. Steve's better guess would be something _thrown_.

“Seriously?”

“He’s been asking questions around town and he's keen to talk to Hop. Call it a hunch.”

Jonathan is quiet for a while. “I'm going down there.”

“No,” Steve feels like throwing something himself because Jonathan booking the first flight back to Hawkins is both exactly what he wants and the outcome he's desperately hoping to avoid all at once. “I think I can handle your old man. Not to brag, but I did pretty well today.”

“What did you do?” Jonathan asks in an apprehensive tone Steve's used to hearing from Nancy.

“I...may have threatened him with a lawsuit that never existed.”

Jonathan snorts. “Seriously?”

“Yeah, I mean...it seemed to make him angry but, hey, he left.”

“He'll do that when the potential to lose _more_ money might be involved.”

And as sad as that is, Steve finds it reassuring in its familiarity. _Greed_ is a motivator he can work with. “See? All under control. And Hop's here too. Though, uh, my father _is_ a decent lawyer if your mom ends up needing one.”

“Who, for the record, did _not_ want to press charges against me or my family?”

“No!” Steve lies, remembering how even after he’d explained the events leading up to the fight and his role in it, he’d had to recruit his mother to talk his father down from any sort of legal action.

He supposes, in retrospect, it was born of some sort of care. Better than anything he can say for Lonnie Byers, certainly.

“I'll keep that in mind then.” Jonathan sounds amused, at least.

“So you'll stay?” Steve holds his breath until, finally, he hears a sigh.

“Yeah, okay.”

“Good,” Steve leans his forehead on the knuckle of his index finger, and smiles. “Because I can't stand another episode of Dallas on your mom's busted TV.”

“Go watch Dallas with _your_ mom.”

“She only watches those shopping channels now!”

Jonathan ribs Steve some more about his regrettable choice in television shows and Steve lets him. He doesn't even call Jonathan pretentious (just this once), because they’re talking, and it's blessedly normal. And, most importantly, it's distracted Jonathan from his earlier concerns about Lonnie.

He thinks so anyway. He tells Jonathan he has work to do and Jonathan says:

“Sorry. About comparing you to him.”

“What?” It takes Steve a few seconds to track the conversation to its source. “C'mon, Byers, that was two years ago.”

“Still...” Jonathan says, and lets it hang.

“Well, thanks,” Steve says, equally uncomfortable but deeply satisfied. It’s a comparison that's stuck in his head, especially since the chief told him about his own high school drama. “I do have to go though.”

“Right, talk to you soon.”

Steve stares at the phone with its unblinking lights, balls up the paper on his desk, and carries it to Powell’s desk.

“My mom says there's dead animals near Cornwallis.”

“ _More_ bears?” Powell rolls his eyes. “Jesus. All right, go check it out. I'll let Hop know where you are when he gets in.”

“Thanks.” He tosses the paper into the nearest bin. He finds Flo in kitchen, heating something up in the microwave. “Flo, can you call the Rangers?”

"A woman can't have a lunch around here.”

“Sorry.” He reaches across her for a pack of twinkies. “How do you think Hop feels? Today was _going_ to be his day off.”

"I can be grateful he's not boozing around anymore.”

Steve smiles at the yellow treat in his hands. “I bet this pack of twinkies he's going to ask Joyce to marry him come Christmas.”

“I bet she'll turn him down quicker than you can finish those tooth rotters.” She reaches into the cabinet above her and pulls out more leftovers, shoving them into his hands and smashing the snack cakes. “Eat some real food, Harrington.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

* * *

Hop radios to let him know he’s on his way over and _not to go in without backup, do you understand me, Harrington_?

But fifteen minutes waiting in front of his parent’s obviously empty house after weeks of desk duty…he figures there’s no harm in inspecting the damage before the chief gets there.

He sees the animals before he reaches the pool gate, scattered across the edge of the woods and trailing further in. What sets his teeth on edge as he walks deeper into the woods isn't the blood or the smell, it's that feeling from before, when he patrolled. That _weird_ feeling, the one that came with the crying, like he was just on the edge of some raw and open wound. The feeling that had disappeared before Hop had practically forced him off night patrol.

He'd never patrolled during the day before. But then, monsters don't come out with the sun, that'd be breaking some kind of rule.

Humans, though….

He can only think of one person he’s pissed off today, and he’d peg Lonnie as the kind of stupid to follow him.

“...Mr Byers? Sir?” Steve adds as he quite suddenly remembers fact three about Lonnie Byers: he can shoot.

There’s a noise, a stillness, and a crash.

* * *

It doesn’t take long for Nancy to realize that extra dimensional creatures are harder to track than wolves or bears. And it's not as though there’s a wealth of knowledge on the subject. What little information the DoE has is theoretical and untested at best. And as for the equipment she has to work with, well...

She's checked in at every drop spot she'd ever visited, all the usual hangouts she and Ficken frequented for any sign of the man, but it’s been a month since she returned to Caltech and _nothing_. His number is still useless and, as she had expected, the usual equipment that had appeared from _mysterious benefactors_ had been cleaned out of the lab over summer break.

She keeps waiting for the other shoe to drop; to open a door and find a cluster of men in suits on the other side. Or, worse still, a body.

In the meantime, she works. After all, they’d not managed to take _everything_.

The equipment she kept in a small compartment under the floorboards of her room is safe. Her notes, her photo of Barb. She doesn't know why she hid it there before she left, but in light of the invasion of her private space, she's glad she had. She only wishes she had hid away more.

What she has isn’t much, even with the library at her disposal. Still it's better than her makeshift workshop in Hawkins. She doesn't know about a _tracker_ but here, at least, she’s managed to attach the working spectrometer to a device that could, _theoretically_ , be used to separate molecules.

She had snuck away a half-life machine from the lab, as well; a dual-handled device that would decay any atom to nearly undetectable levels, but the radiation...her hand shies away from it.

_Better not._

It’s after nine when the phone rings and she stares at it, finishing her line of notes and closing her book. A curious, familiar feeling tugs at the back of her mind.

“Hello? Mom, slow down, I can’t understand what you’re saying.” She presses a finger against her other ear. “Is Hopper there? Put him on the phone!”

Ten minutes later she hangs up with shaking hands, opens the door, and hails down a taxi for the airport.

* * *

Jonathan tries to put the call from Steve out of his head. He’s never been good at rationalizing anger at his father away.

 _Calm down._ He takes deep breaths, focuses the lens. _Once he realizes there’s no money in whatever he’s sniffing after, he’ll disappear again._

But he can’t help almost dropping his camera in his hasty grab for the phone when it rings. His heartbeat kicks up another notch when it’s his mother, voice shaky on the other end.

Jonathan doesn’t bother packing, just buys a plane ticket.

* * *

“He was in surgery for four hours,” Hop’s voice says, somewhere behind his shoulder. “Doc said he lost a lot of blood but--”

“Was it my dad?”

“Why would Lonnie…?” Hop looks at him like he’s speaking in code. “Jonathan, I shot whatever it was that did _that_ to him. And it wasn’t,” he looks around before lowering his voice, “it wasn’t human, you understand?”

Jonathan takes a sharp breath, nods and looks back through the glass of Steve’s hospital room. He doesn’t recognize the woman beside the bed. But judging by the way she leans over Steve to run a hand across his brow, her lips moving to whisper something, and the red under her eyes so similar to his mother's after Will, he’d say it’s Steve’s own mother. And the man who must be his father is sitting in the corner looking at his feet, his mouth set in a grim line.

He doesn’t know how long he’s been looking at them before his mother comes and touches his elbow, leading him out of the room to the private waiting area he grew familiar with during his visits with Will. Nancy is curled up in one of the chairs, eyes puffy and ringed red from crying. Apparently she’d had the same idea as he, with less icy layovers.

He sits next to her and watches as she wakes in slow stages. When she sees him her face crumples. He once thought he wouldn't know how he’d react to her crying, but he didn’t think he’d cry too. He does feel the sting of tears pool at the corners of his eyes, though, and grabs her by the shoulders.

“All my fault, it’s all my fault.” He realizes she's repeating into his shoulder, like a mantra.

She eventually falls back asleep, her head in his lap with his fingers gently twining through her hair. He wonders why she blamed herself. It must be Barb. She was never really able to talk about her. And, according to the half-frantic phone call from his mother, it had happened in much the same place.

Hop brings him water and an awful rubbery omelette. He’s still jetlagged, and even though he knows Nancy must be too he shakes her awake to make her stuff down a few bites.

She accepts it gratefully, and his mom takes him aside while Nancy and Hop talk in low whispers.

“Sweetie, can you get her out of here? She needs some actual rest. Both of you do.”

“Sure, yeah just let me…,” he looks past the door into the hall. He wonders if Steve's parents are still there.

“It’s okay. Go on, go say goodnight,” his mom says.

Jonathan slips from the room and down hallways that _shouldn't_ be so familiar until he's back at the double doors of the ICU. He’s surprised to see that Steve’s parents _are_ gone, probably off finding something more filling than what the hospital cafeteria provides. He's _more_ surprised to find Will sitting beside the bed.

“Hey buddy, don't you have school tomorrow?” Jonathan tries to sound more awake than he is, but his mom was right about needing sleep.

“Mom said I could skip.” Jonathan sits in the hard seat beside his brother. “I knew something like this was going to happen.”

He tries not to start at that, but he knows Will has nightmares he never talks about and...well, being _here_ isn't easy. “You did?”

“When Eleven first came she told Mike... _we_ told him,” Will takes a deep breath looking a little angry now and a lot tired. "But Hop said not to go looking for trouble. That he had it under control.”

He puts a hand on Will’s shoulder “It's okay if you don't wanna talk about it.”

“I think he was worried El might do something.” Will pushes out a hand in some mock semblance of power.

“There's a precedent.” Jonathan brings his hands to his lap to pick at his nails.

“Mike said _Nancy_ was the one who brought her through.”

Jonathan stares straight ahead. He’s not an idiot, but with everything else going on and his desperate need for sleep, he doesn't know if he wants to connect the dots lining up in his head. Finding Nancy that night, whatever it is Hop knows, the sudden appearance of Eleven.

Steve, here, and Nancy…

He knows guilt when he sees it, and he doesn't like seeing it on his brother.

“Nancy was saying it’s her fault.” Jonathan tells him.

Will stares at the bed, looking if anything, angrier. “He’s a cop. He should have waited for backup, like the chief said.”

“So...it’s Steve’s fault?”

Will only seems to realize what he’s implied after Jonathan’s laid it out and he goes from furious to scandalized in an instant. “No!” He pretends to read one of the labels adhesed to the clear bags near his head. “It’s not...it’s that _place’s_ fault. Steve was just doing his job and Nancy...she’s nice. She brought Eleven back.”

Jonathan’s not sure _who_ the sentiment is meant to reassure but, for whatever else Nancy Wheeler may be, and whatever he’ll have to ask her when all of this is over, she _is_ nice.

“Maybe...she was just doing a good thing without thinking. Like that time Pam agreed to marry Mark, and he found out she only did it because he was dying of--”

“Please, no more _Dallas_ , I get enough of that from him.” Jonathan motions to the bed. Both Byers look to the still body, waiting for a snappy comeback that doesn't come. “Anyway, she’s alone with Mom and Hop. Think you can go distract her for a while?”

“Sure thing.” Some of the tension leaves Will’s face, and he reaches up to pat Jonathan’s shoulder. Now Jonathan  _knows_ he’s the one being supported but it's not as strange as he thought it would be, leaning on Will. 

When Will shuts the door Jonathan leans forward on his knees. “I hope you’re happy. Now I’ve used the money for that TV you claim to want for Mom.”

He finally takes a good look at Steve. He's been avoiding it, the face especially. He doesn't know why; according to Hop, most of the surgery was abdominal. If it weren't for the lack of color on Steve's cheeks and the machines hooked up to his arms, Jonathan would feel almost safe in the knowledge that he was going to open his eyes any minute, and wink.

And because he doesn't, only continues that too slow breathing, Jonathan can only look at him for a few seconds.

Jesus, no wonder Nancy was crying.

“Hey, hey,” Jonathan speaks soft like he’s at church, the way Steve and Nancy used to whisper in the darkroom at high school those few months before they split to other sides of the states. “Nancy’s worried sick. I am too, so if you could just...wake up?”

He runs a hand down his face, reaches over, grabs Steve's hand, and squeezes hard. He doesn’t know how long he holds on. He only lets go when he hears the door open, and suddenly remembers they’re not at Steve’s house, that seemingly safe space Nancy, Steve, and he had created over the past two years.

A man he’s never seen is standing on the other side of the door. He looks worried, but he’s not dressed like a doctor so Jonathan guesses he must have the wrong room.

“Hi, um, sorry. They said...I think the nurse didn’t know anyone was in here.” The man’s talking like he knows him. “Jonathan?”

Oh. Maybe he does.

“Yes?”

“I’m Aaron.” He takes a few steps towards him, and holds out a hand.

Jonathan had never painted a mental picture of Aaron in his head. In light of the fact that he _kissed_ Steve Harrington at the end of summer break, he can now take a few guesses why. He’s still a little surprised by the man. He’s a few inches taller than Steve, and the photographer in him can’t help but picture how much brighter his green eyes would be without the worry.

Beyond his eyes he’s just...plain. Nancy is _stunning_ and Steve hadn’t wavered in his regard for her in years. He’s a little offended on her behalf. He does a fairly good job convincing himself that’s all the feeling in his chest is.

Still, Aaron seems...pleasant. He obviously cares enough about Steve to make sure he’s not dead.

“Steve’s old roommate, we talked?” Aaron continues because Jonathan hasn’t actually moved.

“Right, right.” Jonathan stands to shake Aaron’s hand. “Sorry, this is all a little…”

“I get it.” Aaron offers a small smile, dropping Jonathan’s hand and wiping his palms down his thighs. “How is he?”

“Stable.”

Aaron says something in response but Jonathan ignores him, locking eyes with Nancy, who’s looking through the glass, waiting politely in a way she never does. Will must have said something...

_All my fault, it’s all my fault._

He thinks of Nancy shouting at him in the woods, collapsing near Gunther street, cold when she should be warm. Distant, like she learned it from watching him.

_Maybe...she was just doing a good thing without thinking._

Nancy...correcting his notes for the first time, kissing him on the cheek when he wasn’t paying attention, holding his hand like she was asking for permission.

He presses his thumb into the scar tissue on his palm and nods at her.

 _It’s okay, I trust you_.

Jonathan can see her shaky exhale from across the room. She walks in and he puts a hand on her shoulder when she’s close enough to reach, thinking to offer her a ride...somewhere to sleep.

“I know,” she says as though reading his mind, and briefly places a hand over his. “Though I think I’ll sleep just as well here as I will anywhere else.”

He knows what she means. He gives her shoulder a final squeeze and leaves the other two in the room together. Aaron has enough tact to give Nancy a few minutes to gather herself, leaving the room before she does.

“They said he got attacked by a bear?” Aaron shrugs into his jacket and Jonathan notes, with another little jolt, that it’s a letterman. He wonders if it’s Aaron’s.

Jonathan simply nods because what’s he supposed to tell the guy?

“You know when I heard hospital I thought…” Aaron leans against the wall beside him. Jonathan doesn't know what he's going to say, but he can take a few stabs. “Nevermind, doesn’t matter what I thought. Sorry, this is awkward.”

“What is?”

“I’m just, well, usually I’m better at talking to people.” Aaron actually _laughs_ , though it’s clearly nervous. It’s only years of phone calls with Steve and Nancy, dinners with Cebe and Malik, and the quick, excited friendships he’s made with his classmates that keep Jonathan from throwing out the ‘I’m not’ that forms automatically on his tongue. “I feel like I should know more about you, but your mom always talks about you like you’re seven and, well, Steve _never_ really talked about you.”

“He never really talked about you either.”

And Jonathan only thinks after the words have left his mouth that this may not be something you should tell a... _whatever_. Aaron doesn’t look offended. Like Steve, he seems fairly difficult _to_ offend.

Aaron pushes away from the wall to leave, and elbows him in the same jovial way that Steve would. Even if it’s a _coping_ mechanism, smiling through the anxiety or something, Jonathan hates him a little for doing it.

Luckily Nancy comes out only a moment later, so he doesn’t have long to sit there being irrationally angry at someone who is, by all accounts, a decent guy.

He turns and sees Nancy worrying her lip, and remembers that he still needs answers.

But more than that  _they_ need sleep.

“Come on, let's go.”

* * *

If Nancy’s surprised that Jonathan takes them straight to Steve’s house she doesn’t show it, ignoring her key and walking straight in through the back door that Steve _insists_ on keeping unlocked. Probably to spite her, Jonathan thinks.

Nancy doesn’t seem spiteful now. Or sad as she was earlier. She seems dazed, the exhaustion finally making it’s way through her. Jonathan locks the door, and leaves his coat on the kitchen table. The whole house feels wrong.

They shouldn’t have come here.

But he’s not going to kick a fourteen year-old girl out of his room because he’s homesick and Steve’s house feels too lonely without him.

“Do you think this is what it’s like when we’re at school?” He looks around the living room, lit only by the small fish tank in the corner that Nancy’s leaning over. He’s reluctant to bring in any more light than that.

Nancy bends down, reaching in the cabinets for the plastic bottle of pet food Steve keeps there. “I think he spends a lot less time here when it’s just him, yeah.”

Jonathan joins her at the tank, staring down at the turtle with its long crack down the shell. “I’m pretty sure he only kept this because our brothers thought it was cool.”

She scatters the large pellets in the bowl at the edge of the tank until she’s satisfied. “I’d argue for a savior complex.”

Jonathan snorts. “I wouldn’t go _that_ far.”

She leaves him standing there, walks into Steve’s room, and comes back out wrapped in a dark blue sweater with grey diamonds circling the bottom. She’s carrying a stack of pictures Jonathan recognizes immediately.

She sits on the couch, and flips through two years worth of postcards while he bites his nails and pretends to watch Steve’s turtle eat.

“Can I ask you something?” Jonathan turns at Nancy’s voice, but she hasn’t looked up from her perusal.

“Yeah.” His throat goes dry. He wonders if she’s going to tell him what happened.

“You know I love you right?”

Jonathan’s too shocked to react for a moment, but he thinks that may have been the point. Because she's not asking, not really. She’s telling him. In that weird, repressed way she’s probably picked up by watching her parents not say it to each other at all.

In truth, he can’t say he _did_ know. He wouldn’t have been arrogant enough to say, _Yes. Nancy Wheeler loves me, Jonathan Byers!_

But because she’s telling him, he says, “Yeah, yeah, of course.”

Her eyebrows draw together on a shaky exhale. “Do you think Steve knows? That I, I love him?” She lays the postcards on the coffee table and presses her lips together tightly. “I mean, I never _said_ it.”

“Hey.” It’s only three steps to the couch, and he considers vaulting over the armrest at the look on her face but settles for walking around and sitting beside her, pulling her to his side the way he’s seen Steve do so many times before. “I’m sure he does. Sometimes you don’t have to.”

“But I should,” she sniffs. “I should have.”

“Yeah, yeah me too.”

He’s expecting her to do, or say, something. A gasp, an ‘I knew it’, that fond look of consideration she gets when she’s puzzled over something. But she just moves closer against him, turning to bury her head into his left shoulder. Whatever she’s thinking, he can’t say.

He leans back against the couch, eyes firmly fixed on cards filled with his own fairly revelatory words, and thinks he may have said enough. Instead of busying himself with ignoring whatever it was kissing Steve had meant, he should have been considering how far back it stretched.

“Luckily we’ll have plenty of time when he wakes up.” He rests a hand over her upper arm when she’s settled comfortably against his chest. “After I’m done telling him how you talked about him like he was dead.”

“Shut up, you’re just as bad.” Her laugh tickles his collarbone. “I’m just…”

“Tired?”

“Sure, let’s go with tired.” Her laugh is a little more broken and Jonathan holds her tighter reflexively.

“How about let’s go _to bed_?” He runs his fingers through her hair, and thinks about how many hours of sleep they’ll get before the sun rises and visiting hours begin again. They’ll have time enough for talk tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come talk to me on [Tumblr](http://feoplepeel.tumblr.com) :D!


	10. The Brightest Star

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Is this what life is going to be like now? Nancy watching over him and Jonathan offering to hold his hand? It's not a _terrible_ future.
> 
> Nancy sits up in the chair, finally rested or disturbed enough to move, and the peaceful image shatters.
> 
> Somewhere out there is a monster.

The first time Steve wakes, his eyelids still heavy and his throat full of cotton like the memory of a bad hangover, it's to the sight of his dad in a small plastic chair. The man, with his pressed black pants and intimidating height, delights and worries him at once.

The last thing he remembers is...his parents house. Talking to Hop. No, the woods...no.

Bleeding. He remembers bleeding. He moves a hand to cover his stomach, but the tape and tubes stop his arm. The movement wakes his father.

 _You'll wrinkle your suit,_ he tries to say. What comes out is a series of scratchy noises and a cough. He does raise his hand then, covering his mouth and trying to expel whatever itchiness is trapped there. A tight pain sears at his inner elbow. Some distant part of his brain registers he’s in the hospital, but the pain in his throat seems more immediate.

“Easy, Steve.” His dad's at his side when he's finished, cup of crushed ice in hand. Steve takes it with grateful, watery eyes. “Your mother's downstairs. I'll call the nurse.”

By the time they're done checking him, he's sleepy again, from the drugs or the movement, he can't say. His dad brings the small, orange chair closer to his bed.

“You were in Montréal,” Steve says. The point seems reasonable in his head, his thoughts slow and muddled. He wonders how much time has passed. How long he's been asleep.

“Your mother was up all night when you didn't call about the house. Then all we got was a fax that you were in the hospital! She thought she'd gotten you eaten by a bear, Steve. Of course we came home--”

“No, no, don't go home.” Steve tries to place a hand on his father’s and misses by a few degrees.

His dad curls his fingers around Steve's, and Steve tries not to show his shock. The man is rarely outwardly affectionate with anyone but Mamá.

How bad off _was_ he?

“It's not a bear, dad,” he says, and that worried look on his dad's face is for another reason now, he knows. “Get into Gregory's files. You know the ones I mean.”

Gregory Hunter was the head of the the only firm who would take Hawkins Lab case after their colossal fuck up with the Byers. His dad wasn't _friends_ with any of the other big names in Indiana, but he liked to rub elbows...and he knew how to get information.

“It wasn't a bear,” Steve repeats, licking his lips and trying to stay awake. “Just don't go home.”

“Okay, all right, we’ll get a hotel. Just promise you'll get some sleep.”

Maybe Steve is more frantic than he thinks he sounds. He doesn't know if his dad believes him, or if he'll do what he asks. Hell, maybe his father simply thinks Steve needs his parents close by. Frankly he doesn't care, as long as they stay away from their house for a while; as long as he's laid up in the hospital at least.

Then his dad says, “Don't talk like this in front of the nurses.”

Steve chuckles because _that_ sounds more like the man he knows.

“‘Course not, Dad.”

* * *

The second time Steve wakes, it's to the more familiar sight of an anxious and disgruntled Chief Hopper.

“Thought I told you to wait for backup, Harrington.”

“Sorry, chief.”

Steve’s throat is a lot less dry, but he can feel the pain below his ribs more acutely than before. A low, dull throbbing.

“My parents go home?”

“They got a hotel.” Hop takes the seat beside his bed that his dad had been in when Steve fell asleep. “I thought I'd have to persuade them but turns out you'd done my job for me. Your dad said you were _insistent._ ”

“Good.”

“After he threatened to sue me.”

“He'll do that.” Steve shifts up on the pillows with his elbows.

“Well he isn't entirely wrong.” Hop scratches behind an ear and _this_ look of worry, especially in regards to Steve, is one he's not familiar with. “I'm responsible for you and the rest of the squad.”

“I read the manual, chief. I'm sure it didn't mention anything about bears."

“You know as well as I do what that thing was. Which begs the question of why you got out of your damn car.” He shoots Steve a look, and Steve doesn't have to force the apology behind his smile. The state he's in leaves him feeling sorry enough.

“ _Fine_ , but I imagine our manual has even less to say about monsters.”

“No, I imagine it doesn't.” Hop leans his upper body over his knees, looking exhausted. “But _I_ could have said something. Let you know a little bit more.”

“Ah, don't beat yourself up.” Steve wants to punch the man's shoulder, but it'd hurt him more than Hop. “It's not like we lost the World Series. Just...tell me now?”

Hop examines the bed, from the machines to the foot, and back up to Steve's face.

“Yeah, all right.”

When he's done, Steve wishes he had stayed asleep.

“Who do we have looking for it?” He focuses on the future, unable to fully process everything. Hopper with the DoE, Nancy as some...secret super scientist, _more than one monster_. It makes sense, lines up with everything he already knows, but it's nothing he wants to think about right now. Besides, while his medicine does a lot to make him groggy, it's not great for headaches, and he's got a _pounding one_ now.

“The rangers are out there, but it's a large, territorial _known_ mammal they're looking for. On the plus side, the search has convinced some folks to get out of town for a short vacation.” Hop stands, pulling on his hat. "Before I head out, I'm going to need a longer chat with, ehm…my expert.”

“Nancy,” Steve fills in, voice on the edge of disbelief.

“Right. You focus on getting better.”

Headache or no, Steve bemoans more desk duty in the foreseeable future.

* * *

The third time Steve wakes is more pleasant, though it can only be a few hours later. The name of the nurse on his board hasn’t changed.

Nancy is curled up in two chairs, pressed together into a makeshift couch, her face smushed against one of his extra pillows. He hasn't seen her sleep, _really_ sleep, in...longer than he'd like to think about. Instead he thinks about what little Hop was willing to tell him. Nancy's role in, well, _everything_. He hadn't even realized there was anything going on with her before that day in the woods. What kind of a shitty, self-involved friend did that make him?

Had he missed something? Two years of constant conversation, had she ever...given him a hint?

He's still scouring his memories when the door opens.

Jonathan Byers’ open mouth is a comical sight.

“Evening, Byers.”

“You’re awake,” Jonathan finally manages and nearly drops the coffees he brought for Nancy and himself. He sets them on the table by the door and moves to the side of the bed opposite Nancy, bending at the waist to wrap Steve in a hug.

Steve regrets laughing at Jonathan immediately, feeling his already sore stomach muscles tighten against the strain. He doesn't have all the details yet, but he's gathered enough to paint a picture. Something about...sutures.

He shudders.

“Heard I worried a few people,” he says when Jonathan pulls back to wipe at his eyes a little, and aching or not, Steve keeps smiling. “Sorry.”

“You should be.”

They stare at each other for too long, and, well, Steve’s already beat up, stitched shut, and sore as hell. He’s not going to break eye contact first on top of all that.

“You're not staying at home, are you? The thing that got me--”

“I know,” Jonathan interrupts, blushing a little. He looks away first, Steve notes with some amusement. “Nancy and I, uh, we stayed at your place. Mom and the kids went to Hop's. I think he’s more worried Eleven will _fix_ things again.”

Steve nods silently and follows Jonathan’s gaze to Nancy. Wonders how much _he_ knows if he's been talking to Hop too.

He doesn't want to talk about that. Not now that his headache is finally gone.

“Makes me wish I had my camera,” Jonathan says.

“I don't think she'd appreciate it as much as we would,” Steve laughs. “I’m glad she’s actually sleeping.”

“You should be too.” Jonathan looks like he means to scold him. “It's been less than two days.”

“I _know._ I’ve been sleeping for hours.”

“Rest is the best medicine.”

“Thanks, mom.”

There's another lull in the conversation. They don't usually have problems filling the gaps. Steve’s the one who takes point, but Jonathan's gotten better at following his lead.

But they kissed four weeks ago. Steve doesn't really want to think about that either.

Well...he _does,_ but he's not sure how much good it's going to do. He'd thought about kissing Jonathan a lot before the moment came, and thinking hadn't gotten him very far it seemed.

“I met your ex,” Jonathan says evenly. Then clarifies, “Aaron.” Steve studies his face, and so much for not thinking about kissing because Jonathan trying to hold a poker face while fighting a blush is downright endearing.

“Jonathan Byers, are you _teasing_ me?”

“Aaron was  _not_ just your roommate, and I'm tired of talking in circles with my best friends.”

A small part of Steve balks at the implication that he may have hidden anything from Jonathan for less-than-altruistic reasons. But the larger part of him latches on to the words _best friends_ and the force of affection behind them.

“Aaron came by? Huh. That’s...sweet.”

He wonders if there's an appropriate gift for someone you never committed to but still felt friendly enough to make sure a wild animal hadn't savaged you to death. An _I’d care if you died, too_ card, maybe?

Karen could probably help him make one.

“Did you like him?” Steve asks.

“No,” Jonathan answers simply, and Steve snorts.

“Yeah, he doesn’t seem your type.”

“I don’t know. He’s a lot like you, and you’re my type.”

“I thought I wasn't.” Steve angles his head down to stare at him, expression unreadable. “Remotely.”

Jonathan winces. “I lied. To whatever degree the opposite of remote is.”

Steve stares at the ceiling, not sure at all how to take that.

“That explains the kissing. We gonna...discuss that at all?”

Jonathan's eyebrows disappear beneath his hair. “And conveniently gloss over everything _you_ said?”

Steve suddenly remembers he told Jonathan that he had _jerked off_ to him and wishes the monster had finished the job.

“We can talk about all of it if you want. My current situation isn’t particularly convenient.” He rubs his hands together in a circle for something to do.

Nancy shifts in her seat, and Jonathan's eyes dart to her. “Can we not _here_?”

“Sleeping Beauty doesn’t mind.” Steve thumbs over to Nancy, settled now and seemingly undisturbed by their conversation. He thinks to tell Jonathan how much Nancy actually _knows_ but realizes it would likely do more to reveal how Steve feels than it would do to reassure Jonathan.

Before he can decide what to say instead, Jonathan's speaking again. "It's not Nancy. It's...this place. And you've been through a lot, you _should_ be sleeping--”

“Exactly.” Steve motions down the length of his body. “Like I said, I'm not going anywhere. Why _not_ indulge me?”

 _Poor word choice._ Steve grimaces, but Jonathan looks surprisingly unaffected. “I promise we'll talk. Later. Let's get our heads on.”

“Fine,” Steve settles against the pillows, pushing one under his back and forcing himself not to pick at the tape on his elbow that's _just_ started to itch like hell. “Can you get me some water?” Jonathan is still staring at him, so he adds, “I'm not upset. Just thirsty.”

Jonathan avoids having to leave the room by reaching for the nurse call button instead. He surprises Steve further by holding his hand out close to where Steve's rests on the bed.

“You said you wanted to do something dumb like holding hands.” Jonathan wiggles his fingers. “Here. Until the nurse comes.”

Steve touches his fingertips and pulls the hand towards him.

“This is weird.” Steve admits after a few seconds.

“It does feel like we went about this from the opposite side of things,” Jonathan says carefully.

They pull apart when the door to Steve's room opens, but Jonathan keeps smiling to himself while she checks Steve's vitals.

Is this what life is going to be like now? Nancy watching over him and Jonathan offering to hold his hand? It's not a _terrible_ future.

Nancy sits up in the chair, finally rested or disturbed enough to move, and the peaceful image shatters.

Somewhere out there is a monster.

* * *

"The princess rises from her slumber."

It takes Nancy a few seconds to process who the light, teasing tone belongs to, and she feels her heart tugged up in a rush of relief. 

“Steve…”

She sits back in the chair and folds her hands in her lap, waiting for the nurse to leave. She can feel two sets of eyes tracking her movements. Had they talked about her? Were they together now? She hadn't thought to call Steve after whatever had happened over the summer. Surely he would have said something to her.

It'll be good for them, she reasons, her fingers gripped tight to whiteness. They'll have each other after the mess she's made.

The nurse shuts the door after her, but Nancy only looks up when Steve sighs.

He _is_ looking at her, eyebrows drawn together in exasperation that looks foreign on his face.

“You’re an idiot, Nancy Wheeler.”

And he sounds so fond that something in her chest loosens. She can't, _can't_ lose Steve, not even to Jonathan who she thinks might be the kindest man she's ever met.

She feels like an idiot for crying again and hides it by pulling the chairs she’s in apart. Jonathan moves around the bed and takes the one to her right.

Steve falls back on his pillow. “We’re supposed to be a team, Nance.”

Jonathan stops chewing his fingernail to shoot her a nervous smile. “Monster hunters, remember?”

“I...I know. I’m sorry.” She takes a deep breath. “Obviously I owe you two an explanation.”

“If it’s about Eleven, you can probably just summarize at this point.” There’s the barest hint of wryness in Jonathan’s voice. “I talked to Will...kind of.”

Nancy glances sidelong at Steve, who raises his hand, full of false cheer. “Hop.”

She digs into her back pocket for the picture Will had drawn, unfolding it and smoothing it flat against the covers over Steve’s thigh. “Does this look familiar?”

“Yeah.” Steve leans over, and she can see his jaw tighten before he retreats. “The one that Hop shot wasn’t that scale.”

“Bigger?” She slides the picture off the bed, but Jonathan takes it from her before she can stuff it back into her jeans pocket.

“Smaller. Like a cougar.” Steve holds his hands a good deal of space apart. “The claws, though, man…he got those right.”

“There may be more than one.” Nancy swallows hard, feels the familiar furrow in her brow. Steve’s going to have his own scars.

“Hop and I were _there_ , every week.” He sounds frustrated. “Why didn’t we notice?”

“It’s like Eleven, before Nancy...helped.” Jonathan’s examining the picture closely, though she doesn’t know what for. Maybe it’s so he doesn’t have to look at her, so he can pick his words more carefully. But then he _does_ look at her, and it’s the encouraging sort of glance he generally reserves for his brother. “Right?”

Nancy nods. “There was nothing small enough to slip through whatever rifts Hawkins Lab punched into our town, not even Eleven. We... _I_ tried to make one. And succeeded, overly so. Something else came through with her. I had hoped that if it ever returned to where it came from, the device we set down would keep it there. That was the _assumption_.” She forces herself to stare at Steve’s stomach, where she knows the worst of the damage will be. “Now we have proof it can at least come out to hunt.”

“Here’s hoping the bigger ones don’t get through.” Jonathan takes a deep breath, holds the picture out to her.

“Here’s hoping there _aren’t_ bigger ones,” Steve responds immediately. “But...just to be on the safe side, how do we kill this thing?”

“ _We_ don’t.” Nancy shifts her hips until she’s sitting straighter. “I’ve meddled enough, you’re…,” she looks at Jonathan to avoid seeing whatever expression sits on Steve’s face. “I’m going to tell Hop everything I’ve learned and let him take it from there.”

“ _You_ want to stay out of it?” Jonathan asks at the same time Steve says, “I don’t know if you forgot this, but I’m a cop, Nance. Serve and protect?”

“Who are you going to protect from a wheelchair?” Jonathan turns on him.

“What are you going to tell Hop? All we know is that it didn’t work.” Steve ignores him, tries to sit up again and, by the look on his face, immediately regrets it, flopping back down. “Whatever device the two of you nabbed from the DoE.”

“My spectrometer readings were normal, and El couldn’t get back to the Upside Down.” Nancy taps the arm of her chair impatiently. She’s missing something. “The method wasn’t definitive, but those readings were _solid_. I checked.”

“Maybe it just never worked in the first place.”

Nancy looks at Jonathan, and he stares back, a little unsure.

“Keep talking,” she demands.

“You said it was like a sieve, filtering in and out. But the chief says these things, these beacons, were supposed to keep the gates--”

“Rifts.”

“Whatever they were, they were supposed to be stable. _Anything_ getting in, noises and stuff...that seem right to you?”

“The crying?” Steve stares at the ceiling. Jonathan’s nod goes unseen.

“It would mean they were never  _really_ stabilized...right?”

Nancy feels her heart rate escalate. “I need paper.”

Ten minutes later, she’s staring at a minute discrepancy in her own math, the lines burned into her brain after so many nights of work. She runs the numbers again, returning to the same analogous result.

“They’re in the wrong place.” Nancy pushes the hospital pad away from her like _it’s_ the thing to blame. “I should have known to double check their work. It’s still letting that thing come through because _they’re placed wrong,_ ” she says in a rush. “You’re geniuses, and I need to call Hop.”

“Go, go!” Steve tears the top page from the pad and shoves it at her. She leans over the side of the chair to grab her bag and, not giving herself time to overthink it, kisses the top of both of their heads before she runs from the room.

* * *

Steve convinces the nurse, who’s just finished one shift too many by the look on her face, to let Jonathan wheel him down the hall. Steve attributes his charm, but Jonathan’s pretty sure the nurse is too tired to deal with any arguing. When they reach the door to the roof and Steve elbows him a little roughly, Jonathan realizes he’s not really in the mood to argue either.

It’s not a large building, only a flight to reach the top, but Steve’s out of breath by the end of their trek, leaning heavily on Jonathan and the cold metal bar they’ve carried up with them. Jonathan does the math in his head and goes back for the wheelchair, folds it and brings it out of the door behind them. He finds it was the right move when they reach the edge of the railing and have yet to see a bench.

Steve sits with a grunt. “It feels so much better out here.”

“It’s cold.” Jonathan thought New York’s weather would have acclimated him to anything by now. He expected it to be warmer in Hawkins. He stares down at Steve and finds the edges of the other man’s mouth curled up into a smile. He’s not breathing as hard, but he still looks like shit.

“Wanna hold hands again?”

Jonathan chokes on a too sharp breath.

“It’ll warm you up.”

“I’m fine,” Jonathan says sternly, but he ruins it by smiling.

“I know you don’t want to talk.” Steve leans over the arm of his chair. Jonathan notices a small box behind one of the air ducts with the name ‘Kathy’ etched into it. One of the nurses, he guesses. When he sits up, he has something clasped tightly in his right hand that crinkles when he moves. “But apparently I almost _died_. Again. I feel like I have the right to say a few things whenever I feel like it. You know, as the injured party.”

Jonathan stares at him and stares, then nods. “Steve, you can say whatever you want.”

“I wanted to kiss you,” Steve says simply, unfolding his hand. There’s a lighter and a pack of cigarettes in his palm. Jonathan thinks, briefly about reprimanding him. For petty theft, for thinking about smoking with a stomach wound, but his mind is stuck on _I wanted to kiss you_ and can’t seem to break away. “And I love Nancy. Isn’t it strange?”

Jonathan laughs. It sounds, to his ears, unbalanced. “Not uncommon, apparently.”

Steve takes one of the cigarettes out and brings it to his mouth to light it. Jonathan waits for the slow hollow of his cheeks, so different from the harsh, quick way his mother chokes through her own Camels, but it never comes. He takes it out, staring at it before letting his hand fall to the armrest of the wheelchair.

“You’re right.” Steve takes a deep breath. “I don’t want to talk about this right now, either.”

Jonathan has a lot to say.

_Nancy told me she loved me. She loves you._

_I bought a Spanish-English dictionary._

_I kissed you so you wouldn’t tell me you were in love with me. I know you told me anyway._

_Why can’t I say it as easily as the two of you seem to?_

“I thought you quit smoking.”

* * *

It’s only a matter of minutes for Nancy to explain everything to Hop. She’ll give the man this, he’s efficient in a crisis. She pauses on her way back to Steve’s room to take a breath. She has a feeling she won’t get many chances soon.

Neither of the men are there when she makes it past the cafeteria and to the general ward. A nurse is tapping her pen against a thigh, staring at Steve’s empty bed.

“I told him he could wheel him up and down the hall, just to get him out of the room,” she tells Nancy in a clipped tone.

“I’ll just...go look for him.” Nancy hopes she sounds reassuring.

She finds them on the roof. She holds her upper arms in a feeble attempt to block the chill, and follows the path to the small light at the edge of the darkness.

“I thought you quit smoking,” she hears Jonathan say. Her eyes are drawn to another smaller light balanced between the first two fingers of Steve's hand, resting on the arm of the hospital issued wheelchair.

“Well.” Steve's head turns too, as though he’s just registered the object. “Yeah.”

Jonathan plucks it from his hand and brings it to his lips. He coughs violently, and Nancy takes another step forward only pausing at the sound of Steve’s laughter. “You know,” Jonathan says through another coughing fit, “this shit'll kill you.”

“Give me that, Byers. Jesus.” Steve's still laughing when he takes the cigarette back and tosses it over the railing in front of them.

Jonathan leans forward, hands in his pocket. “Hope that didn't hit anyone…”

“Wouldn't be the worst headline in the papers.”

She’s smiling without realizing. They seem so...comfortable. Maybe she hasn’t broken anything. Maybe they just build themselves up around things like this, like she has.

She coughs, and two heads turn to look at her, eyes narrowed in concern.

Steve breaks first. “ _Hello_ , nurse.”

“Your real nurses are worried.”

“They _said_ I was allowed to walk down the hall. This is technically where the hall ends.”

She stares at Jonathan instead. “What is it with you and roofs?” He shrugs, eyes still watering from the smoke.

“Did you talk to Hop?”

“He’s moving the stabilizers to where I told him. Hopefully the new locations will keep whatever’s on _that_ side there.”

“And whatever’s already out here?”

“That’s where my nifty spectrometer comes in.” She manages a smile. “Not exactly a tracker, but nothing will be able to sneak up on us, at least not as close as...last time," she settles on. "He’ll wait for me by Gunther.”

“Nancy the super scientist. I mean I knew you were smart but,” Steve slumps back in the chair, “it's kind of hot.”

She finally finds it in her to laugh.

“I don’t like it.” Jonathan crosses his arms. “We still don’t know how to kill it.”

“We’ve killed one before.” Nancy lays a hand on one of his, only realizes how tense he is when she feels him relax under her touch. “And I’ve learned a few tricks.”

“Tricks?” Steve leans forward to ask.

“If you come with me, I’ll show you.” She places her other hand on Steve’s shoulder. “ _Not_ you.”

“I should be able to do _something_.” Steve sits back with a grunt. “You two left...Hawkins is mine now.”

Jonathan looks peevish at Steve’s comment and Nancy opens her mouth to rebut, but stops herself at the expression on Steve’s face. He doesn’t look petulant; he looks defeated.

“Jonathan, can I...talk to Steve alone for a second?”

Jonathan’s gaze drifts between the two of them. Steve’s not looking at either of them, and Jonathan makes a face at her that she reads as _good luck with that_. “Yeah, of course.”

She waits until he’s on the other side of the roof before speaking. “You know you can’t come with us.”

“Nance, I just got _winded_ coming up a flight of steps. For once I’m not going to argue with you.”

“You want to, I know you want to,” Nancy takes a step forward, filling the spot that Jonathan stood in moments before. “I deserve it.”

“No, Nance, you don’t. You didn’t do this to me. I told you, I’m a cop. This is my job. Even...hell, fighting monsters now, I guess.” His face pinches into an expression she think is frustration. She wonders if he needs more pain meds. “But I’m still _pissed_ at you!”

“Then...talk to me,” she begs.

“There!” He points at her accusingly. “That’s it, that's the thing! I talked to you! All the time, Nancy, I talked to you! We’re, we’re friends, right?”

“Of course!”

“We fought a _monster_. And we never _talked_ about it.” Steve’s not looking at her anymore. She doesn’t know if it’s to protect her or himself. “Any of it. We just...moved on. Ignored it, like our parents would have. _You two_ went to different states!”

“I didn't ignore it!” Nancy hisses. Her hand balls into a fist at her side, aching for the feel of a photo that isn’t there.

“Yeah I know what you were doing,” Steve’s tone isn’t accusing, just barely there. A regurgitated fact. “Why couldn't you talk to us?”

He’s looking up at her like he’s praying, and it only makes Nancy feel desperate and uncomfortable. She wishes Jonathan had stayed.

"I don't know.” She bows her head. “We weren't really...friends, after, were we? I mean I didn't love you two...the way I do now.”

When she raises her head, it’s to stare into Steve’s dazed expression and a slowly spreading smile. Nancy smiles back, a little tentative after the heat of their conversation.

“I told my dad what really happened. Well, I hinted,” Steve looks away, and she lets out a breath. “Hop said he was afraid to let anyone else get involved. I get it, I do,” he assures her. “But look what happened. Jonathan and me...we were already a part of this. I just wish you felt like," he tries, "that you felt safe enough to-" he cuts himself off again, and lets out a sharp breath, obviously frustrated.

“I'm talking to you now, aren't I?”

“Yeah, it’s like pulling teeth.” He reaches out to grab her hand. “I love you, Nancy.” He rubs a small circle across each of her knuckles with his thumb. “Please, _please_ , be careful.”

“I will.” She leans forward, pressing a kiss on his brow. She doesn’t know how much Jonathan can hear where he is, so she whispers as softly as she can, “And I won’t let anything happen to him. I promise.”

* * *

Nancy and Jonathan find Hop near Gunther, only a few feet away from where she had collapsed. Some rebellious part of her brain thinks, _Three feet shouldn’t matter!_ But the scientist in her knows that’s all that does.

“This is all you brought?” Hop stares at her backpack with something like resignation on his face

“I packed in a rush, Hopper!” She bristles. “And this supposed _all that I brought_ is a half-life machine.”

“Meaning?

“Cuts atoms in half until they’re…,” she stops. “It makes anything it hits disintegrate until it's not our problem.”

“Sounds perfect.”

“Tell him the catch.” Jonathan, who she’d kept entertained on the road from Indianapolis to Hawkins with explanations of which buttons did what, cuts in from between them.

“See that? That's the warp coil I added yesterday. Super rapid heating and not enough time for cool down unless you're okay with being radioactive.”

Hop holds it close to examine the mechanics of the device, and Nancy fights a wince. Just carrying it in her bag on the plane had scared her. “One use only?”

“Press here and here,” she instructs. “Use it wisely.”

Jonathan picks up the molecule separator she’s attached to her spectrometer. A far less dangerous, if no less deadly weapon. “What about you?”

“I’m fine with a gun.” She holds out a hand. “Besides, I have better aim.”

Jonathan shrugs and reaches behind him. He drops the gun in her hand, and she closes her hand around the familiar weight. Three heads jerk up at the sound of a crash through the trees. Nancy aims before she thinks.

“You stepped on my foot!”

“Walk _faster_!”

Nancy lowers her weapon. “ _Mike_?”

* * *

"Mr. Byers.” Steve nods at the nervous looking man standing by his door. He hopes he looks pathetic enough for even Lonnie to leave him alone because he’ll be damned to have to call for Amanda (who brought him pudding and has been, by far, his favorite nurse). “Man, they let anyone back here, don't they?”

“Used my boy’s name,” he explains, stepping farther in, looking more sure of himself. So much for Plan Pathetic, Steve thinks.

“Jonathan’s not here. So if you could just--”

“Didn’t come to see Jonathan.” He looks around. “Came to see how you were...holding up.”

Steve had fought a monster, been offered a blow job by a stranger, and fallen in love with his two best friends. He didn’t think anything in life could surprise him. Yet here he sat, a physical shiver making its way up his spine as Lonnie Byers looked at him... _concerned_.

It was _that_ part of his brain that spoke next.

“I don’t believe you.”

And the flat look he got for that, at least, brought some sense of balance to Steve’s world.

“Fine. I read about what happened to you, and I didn't want anyone thinking,” he motions around the room and to himself rather uselessly.

“Thinking what? That you tried to murder me using a giant claw and paw-swipe pressure of--”

“They didn’t put all that in the paper,” Lonnie grumbles. “I only came to tell you what I wanted to tell Hopper. It might happen again.”

And Steve stills because he may not care about Lonnie in any way, but he does care about information. And he wants to know _how much_ he knows.

“All right, I’m listening.”

Lonnie eyes the chair, but something on Steve’s face stops him from sitting. He stays at the end of the bed, hands resting on the bar there. “About a month ago, I got offered money from a man, name of Ficken.”

Something tugs at the corner of Steve’s brain. It was someone Nancy knew. Someone…

The one she thought was dead.

“It doesn't ring a bell,” he lies, and Lonnie nods like he expected as much.

“He told me to keep an eye on Hawkins, Hopper especially. Figured with all the time he’s been spending with _my_ family, it was the least I could do. But this guy was,” he whistles low. “I’ve never seen a suit that nice.”

“And, let me guess,” Steve crosses his arms, “you figured anyone offering the kind of money he was meant there was more to be had.”

“Well, yeah,” Lonnie grins. “Thought something fishy must be going on with Hopper to be pulling in that sort of cash. If I went back to Ficken, I just get the money he gives me. If I expose Hop _myself_ …” He shrugs and looks, Steve can barely believe it, _smug_.

 _Typical_. Steve doesn’t roll his eyes, but it’s a close thing. “So?”

“ _So!_ ” Lonnie points at him. Steve wants to smack his finger but settles for tightening his hands at his elbows. “So you’re here! Not two days after I come to tell you what’s what about that guy. You don’t think that’s suspicious?”

"It’s hard to gather all the facts from a hospital bed, Mr Byers." Steve uncrosses his arms and takes a slow, deep breath. “But it _sounds_ like you’re saying Mr Ficken attacked me with a claw and the paw swipe pressure required of a large mammal.”

“Rich people have ways.” And, rather than embarrassed, Lonnie sounds murderous. It’s a little frightening. “Few years ago, couple of ‘em faked my boy’s death. Remember that?”

Steve nods. It’s amazing how Lonnie weaves back and forth between the truth of the matter.

“I think I got set up ‘cause I didn’t listen to the rules.”

There’s a small, vindictive part of Steve’s brain that feels a sort of thrill at the idea of Lonnie Byers, forever living with one eye over his shoulder, seeking out the ghost of a different kind of monster than the kind that haunt his son’s nightmares. A different kind, but in some ways equally horrifying.

“This Ficken...do you have a number?”

* * *

Will, Lucas, Dustin, and Mike surround Eleven in a semi-protective half circle that Jonathan _knows_ the girl doesn't need.

“You brought them?” Jonathan says. Nancy turns her wide eyes to the chief.

“Don’t,” Hop says, tone clipped. “I’ve already argued about it with them, I’m not making the rounds with you two.”

Jonathan's eyes slide to Eleven, who’s staring at the back of Hop's head, looking mutinous. He catches Nancy shooting her own look at Mike, who won’t meet his sister’s eyes. Will stares across the small clearing at him with a hard to read expression.

“Turns out I needed her.” Hop uses a low tree branch to pull himself up. “She says you were still off by a couple of centimeters. Looks like nothing beats old-fashioned psychic tuning.”

By the time they're finished talking, Jonathan realizes he’s shaking. He takes a breath and walks forward past the kids ( _kids_ ), past his brother, ignoring Nancy calling after him, ignoring whatever present danger he’s in.

A few feet later, he hears the sound of smaller footsteps behind him.

“Jonathan, slow down,” he hears Will call between steps, feels his hand press against his upper arm. “You're walking too fast.”

He slows and only takes a few more steps before stopping. Will steps around to look at him, no longer unreadable. Wary at first, then after a moment of staring, confused. “I thought Hop would protect you,” Jonathan says. “I thought _you_ would hide. I thought…”

And he had left Hawkins, he had left his mother, he had left _Will_ , with this _thing_.

"Snap out of it!" Will’s confusion gives way to something Jonathan’s not used to seeing on his brother’s face. Something combative and...resolute. "Whatever you thought, I’m here now, and I’m okay."

"You're just--"

"Don't tell me I'm a kid." He could tell that had struck a nerve. "Steve calls me a kid, and the monster got him. Eleven killed one of these, and she’s the same age as me." He stares up, and Jonathan finally registers how much Will’s grown since the last time they stood face-to-face. "So it doesn't matter _what_ I am does it?"

"It matters to Mom. It matters to me."

Will falls silent at that.

"It hurt Steve,” he repeats, and something close to dread twists in Jonathan's stomach.

_Oh...no._

"And…." He bites his lip before continuing slowly. "And Eleven saved my life. So did Mike and Dustin and Lucas. I can't let my friends get hurt like that.”

Jonathan lets out a breath when Will looks away, that feeling in his stomach settling and dissipating.

“I know more about the Upside Down than anyone, besides Eleven. I wasn't going to let them do this alone." Will turns back to him, less angry, searching for understanding. " _You_ wouldn't."

Jonathan runs a hand down his face. "No...no I wouldn't." He lays his hand on Will's shoulder, presses his fingers hard into the fabric there. It won't make him any shorter, any younger, but Jonathan feels a modicum of stability return with the gesture. “Let's get back.”

They'd walked farther than he thought. He can just make out the sounds of the others when he stops hearing Will's footsteps behind him. When Jonathan turns, it's to the sight of Will, once again staring at his feet.

"What's wrong?"

Jonathan walks to him, and Will looks up, breathing fast.

"...Will?"

* * *

“Will!” Lucas takes a step after his friend’s retreating back, stopped only by Eleven’s hand at his elbow. Nancy knows the girl has the right of it. Jonathan was...distressed. He needs his family, he needs Will. A smaller, more greedy part of her wishes she counted as something like family, too.

Of course her brother is there to remind her what family, for the Wheelers, _truly_ means.

“Aren’t you gonna go after your  _boyfriend_?”

As though it was all she needed for the dam to break, Nancy whirls on her brother. “I’m more worried about what you’re doing out here!”

“This is _our_ fault, Nancy.” Mike takes a step forward, away from his group of friends and closer to her. “If it weren’t for me, you wouldn't have…,” he shrugs, looking frustrated. “I have to do something.”

Nancy knows she doesn't have the time (or the emotional stability) to argue with a group of fourteen year olds. Especially after Hop's already given it his best go.

But dammit if she's not going to try.

She opens her mouth to do just that when Mike cuts her short with a hard stare. “You _promised_ we could help.”

She glances between Eleven and Mike. On one hand, Eleven being here gave them a better chance. On the other...it added a certain level of unpredictability.

She sighs. “Stay behind us.”

“Tch, no way.” Mike begins rummaging in his backpack (probably hiding a massive, victorious grin that Nancy _wishes_ she didn't know so well), and pulls out something that looks like...

"Is that the--"

"Limited Edition Star Trek Communicator I begged Dad to buy?" Mike _is_ grinning, looking between his friends, who all wear matching expressions. Even Eleven is smiling. "Yes...and no." He opens it, and Nancy takes a startled breath.

"That's my stuff!"

And it is, the inside of the communicator filled not with batteries and plastic as she expects, but with equipment _supposedly_ on loan to her from DARPA.

"You weren't using it!" Mike closes the communicator.

Dustin pulls out another hand-sized box, not a communicator but definitely a toy-turned-something. "We...borrowed some of the stuff from the basement."

"We call them Blindsights!" Lucas takes Dustin's and wiggles it in the air. "Because they blind you!"

"Flash," Eleven says with relish, like she's finishing a presentation.

Nancy stares at Mike.

"What?" he says defensively. "I spent a year and a half with your stupid lab. You think I didn't spend _any_ time studying it?"

Lucas hands the... _Blindsight_ back to Dustin who's staring at her with a raised brow. "Hello, science fair champions?"

Hop lets out an aggrieved sigh. "It blinds, you said?"

"Uh, temporarily. We don't know how well it'll work against a monster, but on humans--"

"You _tested_ this on people?" Nancy feels a headache take form behind her eyes.

"No!" Mike actually takes a step back. "Just...ourselves..."

"That's not better, Mike!"

"Okay calm down, both of you. Now's not the best time for a lecture on _science safety._ And, no offense, but you may not be the best person to be giving it."

"Sorry..." Both Wheelers settle, though Nancy casts one last look at Mike from the corner of her eye, only to find her brother doing the same.

"Just...don't point it at anyone." Hop presses his lips together.

A restless quiet settles over the group while they wait for Jonathan and Will to return. Nancy considers going after them. They can't have gone far, and even with protection, it's not safe. She scoops up her jacket and gun, covering her eyes against the bright glare of the sun's slow rise and moving towards the edge of the clearing. Her breath catches, her hand falls.

_The sunrise._

There’s a pounding, just once, and a distant roar A call to action.

“...Will,” Eleven says, softer than Hop’s cursing and infinitely more powerful. Nancy turns in time to see Eleven reach out her hand and... _tugs_.

 _Unpredictable,_ is all Nancy has time to think before Mike tackles Eleven, and they drop like a sack of bricks. She stops struggling, unwilling or unable to hurt him.

“No powers, you promised!”

“Woah, Mike, take it easy!” Dustin grabs Mike’s arm while Lucas reaches under them to pull Eleven away.

Eleven seems to debate her next move, staring between Lucas’ hand at her shoulder and Dustin holding Mike, when her eyes land on Nancy. Nancy presents the grip of her gun, slowly, as though she might startle the other girl.

 _Let’s do it my way_ , she thinks, as hard as she can, and hopes with all her might Eleven can read the expression on her face.

After a moment, Eleven nods.

“Run,” Eleven steps a foot out of the clearing, towards the noise, turns a quarter, and sets off at a run. “This way.”

* * *

Jonathan drags Will by the wrist, hurls him in front of him, watches him stumble before righting himself and keeping apace.

The monster is a great, dark beast in the early light. Nothing and everything like what Will had described.

He waits until Will’s a safe distance ahead before turning, lining his sights, and pressing the buttons, just like Nancy showed him.

And missing entirely.

Even with some bullshit sci-fi phaser, Nancy was the better shot, some distant part of himself laughs. Another part thinks, _Will did get the claws right._

There’s a blinding light, and Nancy is beside him, tugging him from his shock-still state.

“Jonathan!”

Hop’s gun is a wonder, the creature, blinded and clawing at the air, disintegrating into a shower of mist before it has time to come back to itself. He wants to run his fingers through the slowly falling shroud of red.

Then the other appears.

He hears the crack of Nancy’s gun beside his head before he sees her draw it, his hand cold where hers has slipped away from his. Hop’s pulled out his own, but it’s aimed in another direction, where a smaller monster, less fur and equally large claws, has crept in close.

 _Two_.

Will was right. Cut off the head...and another one comes.

“Take Will!” Nancy says, he thinks, through the ringing in his ears, without turning to look at him. There are flashes from all sides, and the smaller creature topples to its side. “Run!”

The thought of Will is enough, and Jonathan finds him at once in the chaos, pushing him in what he hopes is a safer direction. He shoots a look over his shoulder.

Nancy, gun raised, fierce in the early sun. He considers turning back. He’s protected two before...

He catches her eyes for only a second.

“I said run!”

And before he can consider anymore, she takes off in the opposite direction.

* * *

Nancy runs. She runs until her throat burns, and her chest aches, shooting behind her and praying it follows. Pounding footsteps tell her she’s right.

She thinks of Jonathan, thinks of Steve, Holly, her mother,

 _Barb_.

She falls, a hard crack in the Indiana autumn, an empty click in the chamber. There are no more bullets left.

Lights shine against the gun in her hand, and before she can be set upon, the monster is hidden from her by a swath of metallic grey.

She doesn't register the wall of steel in front of her, but that’s what’s happened. A beast, caged.

She pulls her legs to her and stands, leaving her gun at her unsteady feet. Sounds come back to her slowly, her heartbeat, then the birds, the voices of men.

She stares at the one approaching her. The one she recognizes. “Ficken?”

He’s wearing sunglasses to block the sun, and what little skin she can see is California tan. Nothing about him speaks of a man come back from the dead.

“Good job getting all those stabilizers out.” Ficken comes to a stop in front of her, radiating happiness like she’s never seen from him. He knocks twice on the wall of the cage and smiles grimly at the sound of a loud growl. In the distance Nancy sees more bright lights through the trees, brighter than the Blindsights.

“What…?” She blinks the spots away from her eyes, staring between the metal and the man who put it there, “We…we just moved them.”

“Well, whatever you did, you have our thanks.” He lowers his arm. His face isn’t serious like she remembers, there’s something too playful about his eyes, like he’s only affecting his humorless air. “Did you know that no one, except residents of Hawkins have been able to get in or out of this town for _two_ years, Nancy?”

“I...I didn’t.”

“Strange, huh?” He raises a brow so high it nearly disappears beneath his hair. “Everyone we sent in, _poof_ , vanished. We _knew_ it still existed. We still had information coming out, after all. The Department of Energy is here, even if we couldn’t talk back to them.”

“The Department of Energy…,” she repeats, feeling like an idiot. But her brain is slowly catching up to what he is saying, the familiar pinch between her brows making itself known.

“Then _you_ show up at Caltech, from Hawkins, Indiana with a paper on _multiple worlds_.” She’s never seen him smile so much. “Like I said...strange.”

“So the rifts _were_ affecting Hawkins.” Nancy feels like she’s ten, in her father’s study watching him set the last of a thousand piece puzzle into place. “I was a part of the affected area. Why not just tell me?”

“Single-Blind, Miss Wheeler, you know how it is.” He shrugs. “We wanted to see how it impacted your ability to travel into and away from the town. I could never contact you while you were here, and once you and the Chief of Police put that Department of Energy beacon into place, we lost track of you all together.” He motioned to the cage, once more. “I had to enlist some rather...unsavory sources to get in touch with you. Luckily, you’ve proven yourself to be resourceful. We’ve been waiting to try these out for a while.”

“So you lied,” she crosses her arms, “about your mother.”

“No, that was true. She just wasn't the reason I sent you here,” he says, easily. “Besides...it all worked out, didn’t it?”

Nancy moves her hands to her shoulders and shivers. She gazes sidelong at the cage, which seems to be humming, faintly, beside her. “What are you going to do with...that?”

“Study it.”

“You should kill it,” she says immediately.

“That doesn’t sound like the scientist I know.”

“You don’t know me very well.”

“I think I do, a little.” His lips lift into a smile: “It’s why I’m so good at what I do.”

“Well I don’t know anything about you.”

“All you need to know is I keep my promises.” He presses a fist into his hand. “My people know only as much about the psychic as the DoE wanted them to. And that wasn’t much. Anything that happens to her now,” he unfolds a hand to point at her, “well that’s on you and your lot, I suppose.”

She remembers Mike jumping on her bed the morning Eleven came out of the Upside Down. Eleven’s smile when she was explaining how the Blindsight worked. She slowly uncurls her fingers from her arms. “Thanks.”

“I’ll warn you, too,” he adds, his voice low, “DARPA’s going to be keeping a close eye on this place. That girl needs to learn the words ‘low’ and ‘profile’, in that order.”

“Can I work for you?”

Ficken blinks, and she imagines this is what he looks like when he’s been caught off guard. She doesn't blame him. She hadn’t planned to say it. “Excuse me?”

“I’m asking for a position in your department,” her voice is surprisingly steady for one whose thoughts are circling on an endless loop of _Mike, Jonathan, the kids, we’re alive_. “When I graduate. If DARPA’s going to be crawling all over my hometown...I want to be the one doing it.”

He clasps his hands behind his back, looking very much the Ficken she remembers. “This wasn’t Special Ops, Miss Wheeler. You took equipment that was presented to you and did the equivalent of reading the instruction manual.”

“When I was a _sophomore_ ,” she points out. “I proved MWI to you while most of my class were still learning multivariable calculus.”

“Multiple-worlds theory is a quack’s--”

“I was  _right_.”

He blows out a breath, unclasping his hands and waving one through the air dismissively. “...I’ll consider it.”

“You’ll do it,” she straightens, fights her smile. “I know more about this place than any of your guys. _And_ I’m intelligent, you said so yourself.”

Ficken opens his mouth, likely to respond very rudely, when something hits her, hard, in the side. She panics for a moment before two arms wind around her stomach, and she’s hit on the other side, then from behind, and more arms than she can touch find their way to her neck. She’s bundled up, her own arms trapped, as Mike and the rest assault her with affection the way only these slightly too-tall, always awkward teenagers can.

“Hi guys,” she laughs, then chokes back a sob when she sees Jonathan reach for her. His fingers tangle in hair at the nape of her neck, and she feels the press of a kiss to her temple. Everything about Jonathan is trembling, and while his face pulls away, his fingers stay buried in her hair. She leans back into the contact.

Mike, the one pressed closest to her, backs away first, wiping at his eyes. “We got ‘em, Nance.”

Eleven’s next to him, protective and proud. Maybe it’s Nancy’s own near death, or that it all worked out. Maybe she’s still flushed with victory. Whatever the reason, Nancy finds she can’t  bring herself to regret any of it.

_You’ll have that with her. Every moment I lost with Barb, you’ll have that with her._

“Told you I’d fix it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a wild one to write! One more chapter, you guys!


	11. December Will Be Magic Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They were supposed to talk, and strangely, across the many miles and through the years, the three of them already had.

_¡Pura vida!_

Jonathan heaves a breath and reaches across his chest for the discarded dictionary.

 _That’s right, this one’s going to be in Spanish! If you've really been studying than you should be able to make it all the way through._ _PT is down to once every two weeks so Mamá is back at her old job with Gramps. Guess this means I’ll have a free pass home soon. Still have room for me?_ _I think you should take the book deal. I know coffee tables go against whatever “aesthetic” you’re aiming for, but you’re the one who wanted to double major, man. What’s that business major telling you?_ _Speaking of business, how’s Joyce? What’s this about her and El’s aunt starting some print company? Hop tried to explain it, but we got sidetracked talking about the new kid--Tim. Have you met him? He sounds awful. Tell me he’s awful. Tell me I’ll still have a job when I’m able to hold a gun again._ _Soon, hopefully._  
_I love you, I love you, I love you.  
_ _P.S.-Tell Donnie I miss him. Make sure he remembers my beautiful face. Seriously, I think Will is trying to claim ownership rights, and my dad doesn’t do joint custody cases for animals._

Jonathan slides this one under the others in Steve’s drawer. He’s still hard-pressed to think of it as his own. He’s technically owned the house since December. A Christmas gift from Steve he was less appreciative of at the time, since the man himself had disappeared between October and November to stay with his grandfather at the Costa Rican embassy.

He had tried not to be angry, could see Nancy press pass understanding into that quiet indignation she wore so well. Steve was supposed to be in Hawkins...they were supposed to talk....

Then the postcards started. Not excuses, just store bought stationery covered with Steve’s day-to-day life. Physical therapy was hard, Steve’s mother blamed herself for what happened, his father wanted Steve to see a psychiatrist.

Nancy’s anger quieted first, and Jonathan caught her talking on the phone with him over Christmas break. It didn’t look like the first time, by the smile on her face, but there was still a hardness in her eyes.

Nancy had set to her coursework with a determination born of something other than secrecy and guilt. Back in Hawkins, during their breaks, she looked as light as she had in high school, centered in a way Jonathan hadn’t seen for years.

“He’ll be back,” she said once, catching him watching her and smiling a little more brightly. The phantom pain of abandonment that Jonathan recognized in himself tried to believe her every time.

* * *

Steve thought living with his parents again would be awkward, but Abuelito’s estate is so big, he hardly sees them apart from meals and the physical therapy appointments his mom drives him to. His grandfather has always been...distant (metaphorically and physically), but Abuelito Mora is now enthusiastically present, spending every dinner regaling Steve with tales of his great-grandfather and uncles.

 _Like your bear fight!_ he almost always adds in, somewhere, with a flourish, and Steve thinks Abuelito may have him mistaken for an adventurer rather than a peacekeeper.

Still, thanks to him, Steve learns the language better, gets to know the wildlife. Even travels to Nicaragua once.

Mamá asks him if he's lonely.

* * *

Nancy circles her own misspelled word (and really, who misspells _albedo_?), turning her head at the sound of a cough.

Xia, a girl she’s worked with in a few of her classes, is looking at some point above her shoulder and obviously struggling to say something.

“Wanna go…,” Xia trails off, like she’s still debating something with herself. Nancy flips the pages of her paper shut and waits until Xia’s a little closer to raise her eyebrows and cough, a subtle hint to _go on_. “To the community area?”

She understands why Xia’s nervous. Nancy hasn’t exactly been...friendly with the other students during her time here.

“I rented a movie.” Xia holds a tape up and waves it back and forth when she sees no clear sign of rejection.

“Sure.” Nancy caps her pen.

“Really?”

“Yeah, I need a break anyway. My eyes are starting to cross.” Nancy chuckles. When Xia stays plastered to the side of her chair, she offers a delicate smile. “I’ll join you when I’m done here?”

“Great!” Xia starts backwards towards the other room. “I’ll just get this set up!”

Nancy munches popcorn and thinks that _Pretty in Pink_ is exactly the sort of schlock Steve would love. And he’s missing it because even though they _won_ , Steve was nearly torn in half, and his rich grandfather can afford better doctors.

She shouldn’t be so angry at how little control she has over Steve Harrington, but...irrationally, she is.

She sets her popcorn aside. It tastes a little off now.

She taps her companion’s shoulder. “I have to make a phone call.”

“Do you want me to pause the movie?”

She tries to hide her surprise but, judging by the softness in the other girl’s expression, doesn’t do a very good job. “Yes, if you don’t mind.”

She doesn’t know Steve’s number, which is fine. She calls Jonathan instead.

He's in the middle of not caring about the last postcard Steve sent him (very loudly, for Jonathan) when she figures, what the hell.

“Wanna go on a date?”

She imagines the face he makes when he's thinking. Or maybe he's simply shocked to silence.

"Uh, yes? I mean yes, yes," he says more firmly. "Wait, how?"

"Generally you--"

"I mean _when_? I can't come pick you up."

Nancy thinks about when she'll be done with exams. Her next free moment....

"...spring break?" She winces.

Jonathan only huffs out a laugh. "You know I've never been to California."

"Yeah?" She grins.

When they're done talking, she hops over the back of the couch to land beside Xia and finish a movie that seems prettier, pinker, and a little less grating now. When she’s alone in her room, she takes out a postcard and writes a single line:

_I'm going on a date with Jonathan Byers._

“How much did it cost you in postage to brag about that?” Steve asks a few weeks later, and he sounds so damn pleased with himself that she regrets sending the thing.

"Less than you're spending on this phone call."

"Well it's about time,” and that irrationally angry part of her eases because she _knows_ without seeing that Steve’s smiling. “I told you if you didn't ask him nothing would happen."

“He's still pretty pissed at you." She bites her lip, unsure how much she should disclose. "Maybe you should, I don't know..."

"Work the ol' charm?" He laughs. "He's not pissed at me, he misses me. Trust me, I've been there. It gets you pissed off for the weirdest reasons.”

 _Irrationally angry_ , she thinks.

Something about that eats at her, even as they move onto more comfortable topics. When he says I love you and goodbye, she’s rushing out a thank you before he can hang up.

"For what?"

"I don't know." She gusts out a sigh. "Being the only thing that kept us going for over a year. It never felt hard before now and....that was mostly you."

He’s quiet for a little while. She thinks she may have finally embarrassed him somewhere outside of the bedroom.

Eventually he lets out something like a grumble.

“Oh, go be a genius, Nancy Wheeler.” And, yes, that’s definitely _flustered_.

“Good _night_ , supercop.”

* * *

Steve reaches out to Nancy first. Saves all of his phone calls for her and listens to her slowly relax, believe he's getting better even though she can't personally see to it.

Jonathan...is more difficult. He's not angling for the man to write him back (lie). But he would like to know how he is. He comforts himself that he's well enough for Nancy and the Byers not to say anything when he contacts them. He thinks of sending him a mixtape, but the words mean less in Spanish. And he knows Jonathan has a dictionary, but sending an entire album just seems like homework.

After months of one-way postcards, and seemingly out of nowhere, Jonathan calls _him_.

“So how did the grandson of an ambassador end up in Hawkins, Indiana?”

Steve smiles. Jonathan doesn't sound angry. Doesn't even sound awkward.

“Well a certain brash, young lawyer working with the US consulate fell in love with his daughter and whisked her away to America in her own, more daring youth...at least that's how Mamá tells it.”

“You Harringtons certainly avoid the path of least resistance.”

“Hmm.” Steve counts the stars just starting to dot the sky. "How are you, Jonathan?"

* * *

On Will’s fifteenth birthday, Steve spent more money than he should to call, and seeing his brother laugh into the phone, Jonathan finally decided to reach back.

Steve wanted to see something outside of Hawkins, _like you, like Nance_ , he’d written in one of his first postcards. He wanted to know if he even _could_ leave without something breaking.

 _“I might as well do it while I’m broken on the outside, just in case,”_ he said, the first time Jonathan caught his voice through the telephone. For once he didn't sound lonely.

He talked about stars, how different the sky looked from Costa Rica, and the satellite space between them. He felt as though he had never really understood Steve until then. Like they had been reading from the same book in different languages.

“He’ll be back,” Nancy says, over and over. “We all needed space, time. Steve understood that when we left. We just have to be patient.” Pats his hand, smiles brightly. “He’ll be back.”

At some point, he realizes it’s a little bit for herself, too, so he squeezes her hand and smiles back.

They were supposed to talk, and strangely, across the many miles and through the years, the three of them already had.

* * *

Jonathan opens his eyes to a knock at the door frame. Nancy has faint bruises under her eyes that speak of sleepless nights, but her eyes are light and happy. When she’s back in Hawkins, she spends most of her days with that strange man, Ficken. Jonathan doesn’t trust him, but neither does Nancy, and the list of people Jonathan _can_ trust is incredibly short. Nancy is one of those few people, and supernatural government work or not, this seems to be what she wants.

She shoots him a look, amused and irritated, and he feels an eyebrow raise in question before lifting himself on an elbow. Her answer comes in the form of a waved card.

“He misses that damn turtle more than us.” She unhooks her bag from her shoulder and throws it just outside the door.

Jonathan snorts, falling back on the bed and watching her hair fall against her back as she lets it loose on the path to the shower.

“I don’t know, I got three _te quiero_ s.”

Nancy turns to roll her eyes before disappearing into the bathroom. “He knows I’m not going to bother translating before he calls.” Her shout is muffled by the door.

“I might have to make him stop.” Jonathan waits for the water to stop before speaking again. “He’s way more well-spoken in Spanish. _Estético_ , he wrote.”

She steps through the door, toweling off her hair with her own brow lifted.

“Aesthetic.”

“Oh gosh.” Nancy presses a laugh against the tips of her fingers. She settles at the end of the bed on her stomach, her ankles crossed in the air near his shoulder. He makes a face and catches one of her feet, runs a finger down the center until she jerks away with a shudder.

“Knock it off.” She grins over her shoulder. He smiles back, unapologetic, and stares at the blank space on her ankle. Cebe still hasn’t convinced him of the benefits of a tattoo, but he’s pretty sure he saw the cracks in Nancy’s armour when she came to visit on New Year’s Eve. He wonders if Steve would be willing to place a bet on it….

“What do you want to do today?” She flips over, lacing her fingers over her stomach.

“ _Apparently,_ we’re supposed to show Donatello pictures of Steve, so he remembers where his true loyalties lie,” Jonathan’s grin widens at her exasperated sigh, “but I wouldn’t mind ice cream.”

“We can pop in and see your mom while we’re around the corner.”

She says it with something close to carelessness, but Jonathan’s been friends with her for three years now and, arguably, dating her for one of those (arguably because with Jonathan spending most of his time in New York, Nancy in California, and both of them in love with a man who relocated to Costa Rica, the amount of dates they’ve _physically_ been on is...paltry to say the least), and he knows the sometimes staggering amount of care she has for the Byers family.

“I promised Jane I’d take her to a movie this week.”

By extension of her care, whether for himself or Mike, or as the result of their misadventures, came another relationship. His...foster sister, he supposes, and Nancy had struck up something of a bond. Friendly isn’t the first word that comes to mind when Jonathan thinks of either of them, but he’s seen the way Eleven’s eyes stick to Nancy when they’re in a group sometimes, open and curious. More recently Nancy says Eleven’s taken to calling her at school, cajoled by one of the boys, Mike or Will, probably. His mom says she’s still not great on the phone, something she worries over after every social service call, but if Nancy’s noticed she doesn’t mention it.

For Jonathan's part, he’s found himself backing off from his family, or maybe he trusts more people than he thinks. Breaks with Hop haven’t been unbearable, though most of what they have in common is Steve. His mom seems fulfilled working with Eleven’s aunt, who’s moved her small shop and her sister, Eleven’s mother, into Hawkins to be closer to Eleven (or _Jane_ , though Eleven doesn’t seem to mind what she’s called). Jonathan’s old room is unrecognizable for the small touches that have become large strokes of the fifteen year old girl’s burgeoning individuality.

It brings him more comfort than seeing his own belongings in Steve’s house, not even when Nancy had stumbled on a box with her name in black marker, pulling out a sweater and jacket from the bottom of the pile and wrapping it around her tightly. As nice as it feels for the two of them to find a space together, there’s something distinctly restorative in watching Eleven find her place in the cluttered, lonely mess of the Byers family.

And Will…

Will is happy. Despite everything, including Jonathan’s own leanings toward worry, his nightmares have abated, and he’s drawing again. They don’t talk about monsters or the Upside Down, but...there’s a look sometimes, searching, and Jonathan knows without having to promise. If something _does_ happen, he won’t be left in the dark.

“Sounds good,” he finally answers, sliding off the bed and pulling her up into a kiss. “But _no_ mixing bowl sundaes this time.”

“No worries, I think Mike’s still sick from the last one.”

* * *

Steve will be back in Hawkins by the time they're home for Thanksgiving. Neither of them get another card over summer break, but Hop tells Jonathan over dinner like he should know.

 _Hopefully soon,_ Steve had said.

They spend the last weekend before Nancy has to go back to Pasadena hanging up clothes and rearranging drawers. It takes a whole day to move Nancy’s work equipment from the living room into the guest room. They don't have many overlapping breaks, so most of the year Steve's-- _Jonathan's_ \--house is unoccupied, and he’s never been great about unpacking.

"Does this mean this will be you and Steve's house?" The smile she gives him is one he's not used to seeing outside of the bedroom, and he scoffs if only to avoid answering. He actually doesn't know the answer to that, but he knows when he's being teased. She pins a picture on the corner of her cork board. It's old and worn and unmistakably Barb.

He lays out more of the pictures they share between them; some Nancy's, some his own. Two he had pulled from the inside of a book Jonathan had found in Steve's bedside drawer and eventually snuck into Will's bedroom while he was at school one day. If nothing else he could at least thank Steve later for helping him avoid that most awkward of conversations with his younger brother.

“When’d you take this one?” Nancy sits on the edge of the bed and picks up one of the photographs, gently, between her fingers.

“Hm?” He examines the picture in her hands. It's Steve and Nancy, walking towards the school and wound up in one another. “Parking lot, senior year.”

“I don’t remember this.” She runs a finger down the center. “We were a cute couple.”

“You’re still a cute couple.” He snorts.

“I have to say, it's going to be a little tough to wrap my head around both of you being here again.” She drops the picture to her knee and lets out a breath. “I was so worried about _if_ he was coming back that I never spent any time thinking about what we were going to do when he did.”

Jonathan stays silent because, in truth, he _had_ spent a great deal of time thinking about what would happen when Steve came back to Hawkins.

He blames the damned book.

When he catches Nancy’s eye again, she’s biting her lip. “I wish Barb were here.” Jonathan thinks about how far she’s come to admit that. “Usually I talk to you about Steve...Steve about you. Who do I talk to about this?”

“Guess we’re all stuck being honest with each other.” Jonathan raises a brow. “Awful, I know.”

“Shut up.” Some of the tension leaves her shoulders with a chuckle. "Tell me about the rest of these."

* * *

Jonathan sees Steve’s coat before he sees Steve.

“I _would_ say welcome home, but it’s like you didn’t even try to make this place homey.” Steve throws over his shoulder from the couch. He’s watching some old cartoon on mute. “Seriously, you even moved my clothes back to the drawers? I feel like I never moved out.”

Jonathan drops his bags at the door and tries his damndest not to look caught off guard (upon later reflection, the dropped bag may have been a bit of a giveaway).

“You know, we’re only here a few weeks out of the year.” He’s happy his voice comes out even.

“Yeah, yeah.”

“You really should have just kept the house in your name.”

“We talked about this, Byers,” Steve grouses, pulling himself up by his elbows and half-turning to look at the doorway. “Then it wouldn’t have been _a gift_.”

“Back to Byers now?”

Steve laughs. “You missed it, don’t lie now.”

Steve looks...like Nancy had, the last day they were here together, preparing for Steve to come home. Ecstatic and nervous and hopeful.

_At least we’re finally on the same page._

Jonathan knows he has to be the one to take the first step this time. Not only metaphorically since he’s literally backed against a door here. Still it's odd seeing Steve so...patient. He's always been that, in some way, but his hands are so still and...fuck it, Jonathan's killed two monsters, and more than that, he's lived in New York for almost two years. He's not going to run away from _second base_.

Jonathan hangs his jacket next to Steve’s and joins him on the couch. Steve doesn’t bother turning the television off, but he doesn’t turn the sound on either, and eventually his posture eases into something more relaxed.

Jonathan looks at Steve, with only a few inches of space between them, and leans in before either of them can start to talk about the million, unimportant things that don’t matter as much as how long they’ve been putting this off.

They’ve spent months talking about stars and satellites, and Jonathan thinks Steve lets himself be pulled into the kiss like he’s found the curved path of his orbit. He remembers, with a startled laugh, the motivational card hanging on a cork board a room away. Thinks  _You Can Do Better_ and slides his tongue against Steve’s, running a hand through his bangs and cradling the back of his head when Steve presses his lips into the nape of his neck.

When Steve pulls back enough to speak, he’s interrupted by the sound of a crackling radio.

“I, uh, got my job back. Light patrol duty for a while. Sorry,” and Steve certainly looks sorry when he answers the summons.

“So I’m in until tonight, probably late. Don’t wait up. Or do,” and Jonathan imagines if Steve weren’t so red and out of breath, the statement may have come across as more an invitation rather than an embarrassed choked out noise.

Jonathan laughs because in every scenario he’s pictured for this moment, _he_ was the flustered one, tripping over his own naivete and trying to keep up. Steve hooks his radio to his belt and pulls his jacket from somewhere beside the couch.

Jonathan still disagrees with Nancy about the uniform thing, but seeing it on Steve, he understands where she got the idea at least.

Jonathan pulls him down, and Steve follows easily, laying almost on top of him against the arm of the couch. It’s doing little to help Steve get ready to leave, but Jonathan's not worried about it at the moment, especially when Steve twines an ankle around his and uses the whole of his leg to press them closer together.

Jonathan wonders if there will come a day that Steve doesn't find gaps to press himself closer, space to fill where there is none.

He hopes not.

* * *

The Wheelers invite Steve and Jonathan over to watch the Macy’s Day Parade the morning of Thanksgiving, something Nancy and Mike don’t seem too thrilled about but bear with admirable grace. Jonathan’s never actually seen it all the way through, and Holly’s reactions make it delightful enough for all of them. By the time it ends, the oldest Wheeler children are still grumbling, but they’re pulled in close under Mrs Wheeler’s arms and smiling.

Nancy and Jonathan help Mrs Wheeler pack a seemingly endless line of tupperware and drive to his old house, where his mom is frantically working around an almost zen Hop. He’s not a good cook, but he’s done Thanksgiving for a crowd, and he knows how to delegate (and, better still, how to get Mom to sit down). Jonathan isn’t sure how Nancy and her mom wheedled Mr Wheeler into spending Thanksgiving dinner away from the comforts of home, but he’s not sure it matters since he’s out like a light right after dinner, despite the frankly _amazing_ football game on his mom’s new television (and Jonathan only knows it’s amazing because he _can’t look away_ ).

Steve disappears at some point between Dustin telling Nancy about a new book she should have read years ago and Mike arguing with Hop about long-range scanners. Lucas and Eleven are setting up something dangerous-looking in the corner that he wants to stay _very_ far away from, so he makes his escape, grabbing a few pieces from the dessert table and starting his search at the back porch.

Jonathan finds Steve outside, sitting with Will and Scuffer beside the big fire Hop made in their backyard. He approaches slowly at the matching looks of consternation on their faces, but rolls his eyes when he draws closer and hears the word, ‘Donnie’. He waits behind Will’s chair until their mom calls him inside, then falls into the seat beside Steve.

“DId I interrupt delicate trade negotiations?”

“More like a hostage situation,” Steve grumbles. “I’m never getting my turtle back.”

“You shouldn’t have left.”

Steve stares at him, and Jonathan’s decidedly glad he doesn’t apologize. He was right to leave...and he won’t mean it anyway.

“That was the first thing I liked about you.” Jonathan leans back with an exhaled breath. “I don’t think I ever met anyone who apologized the way you do.”

“That feels like a really roundabout way of telling me what a screw up I am.” But Steve looks more amused than insulted, leaning back and closing his eyes. “And I didn’t apologize.”

“I know,” Jonathan opens the napkin he brought out with him, displaying a slightly melted cookie. “You won’t unless you mean it...then you _really_ apologize.”

Steve takes the cookie and seems to consider this.

“Is it weird that I missed you?”

For a second he's not sure if Steve remembers having said that--it was so long ago. Then Steve blinks, melting into the lawn chair a little. "Oh god, you heard that?"

Jonathan bumps the back of his knuckles with his own, and Steve lifts the cookie to his mouth again, obediently.

"Man, I had such a crush on you. It was embarrassing."

"Had?" Jonathan grins.

"At some point you have to stop calling it a crush, Byers."

"The point where you're holding hands and writing, _Te quiero_?"

Steve smiles around his next bite. "Safe to say."

“You know, I don't think it's weird that you miss me.”

Steve stares at him for a moment then turns bright red and laughs into his hands. It reminds Jonathan, fondly, of Nancy and he wonders if it’s something they’ve picked up being around one another. “Thanks, I think I worked that much out on my own.”

“Hey, yoohoos.” Nancy steps around the arm of Steve’s chair and plops sideways onto his lap. Steve’s arms go around her waist automatically. “Jane and the boys want to show off this year’s science fair project.”

“In a minute, Nance.” Steve rests his chin on her shoulder, and she brings her feet up to rest on Jonathan’s thigh. Jonathan curls a hand around her ankle.

It's ten minutes, and they're late for next year’s _surely_ championship project, but just in time for part of it to spontaneously combust on the dining room table.

And although this was _exactly_ the sort of thing Jonathan was hoping to avoid on a peaceful Thanksgiving evening, it's the best he’s had in living memory.

* * *

Steve’s still not used to the weather and gets a cold as soon as December rolls around. It makes for a miserable start to the season, though he feels worse for Nancy who’s stuck buying groceries at the beginning of her well-earned break and insists on learning to make olla de carne since his mother isn’t there to make it for him (she never manages, but this has the fortunate side effect of _Karen_ making her own beef stew). From then on, he remembers to put on a sweater and _closes the back door_ because, even if it’s only a few weeks a year, this house isn’t _just_ his now, and there are rules to follow.

By the time Jonathan is there for Christmas, Nancy’s already figured out where she wants the tree to go, and despite his still somewhat wary feelings on the subject of them, Steve’s bought three different types of Christmas lights. He’s also managed a halfway decent conversation with Aaron, who only works at the general store seasonally but has decided to stick it out in Hawkins for reasons Steve can’t figure out.

They have to drive out to Hamilton County to get a _real_ Christmas tree, but it’s worth it for the look on Eleven’s face when she steps in their house and sees it covered in small, twinkling lights. Half the time she and Will come over to watch a movie, they spend more time in front of that tree, and Steve’s pretty sure she’s being spoiled.

But if anyone deserves it, he supposes.

Steve’s cat likes it too, and they have to spray something around the base to keep her from jumping up and chewing the needles she can reach. Ladyhawke was a reconciliatory gift from Jonathan for losing Donatello to his brother, though if Steve’s honest with himself, he knew the minute he asked Will to ‘babysit’ how that deal was going to turn out. Steve pours a packet of cocoa into his cup of steaming milk and watches Jonathan move the bundle of black fur away from the mess she’s already made of their wrapped presents before turning back to the kitchen with a smile.

Steve’s definitely a cat person.

He’s finished two of the hot chocolates and set the third in the microwave when Nancy steps into the kitchen, toweling off her hair and shivering when her bare feet hit the tile floor. She takes one of the finished cups and blows into it.

“Let me know if I need to warm it up.”

“Mm.” She starts to take a sip when her eyes catch something through the window. “You’re kidding me…”

Steve tenses, standing half in front of her to look and….

“Hey, it’s snowing.” His lips lift into a smile, but when he turns to look back at her, she’s already racing to the door, her cup left cooling on the counter.

“Jonathan! Snow!”

She’s tugging on her first boot and holding on to the other when the front door shuts behind her. Steve leaves the hot chocolate to run after her, but Jonathan catches him by the arm, throwing a coat over his head with the other hand.

“You _just_ got better.” Jonathan’s face _looks_ placidly calm but Steve’s seen Jonathan worry over Will enough not to buy into it for a second.

“Sorry.” He smiles sheepishly, and Jonathan lets him go so he can slide an arm through his jacket sleeve. Jonathan pulls on his own coat and grabs Nancy’s hanging at the door.

The flakes are huge by the time they reach her in the middle of the yard, and neighbors are pouring out of their houses to catch sight of the first snowfall lit only by the moon and their outdoor preparations for Christmas.

Nancy wraps herself in the jacket Jonathan brought out for her, a little embarrassed, and shows them the snowball she’s already managed to pack in her hand. She turns it loose and most of it floats back to the ground in small white tufts. Even from far back, Steve can see her hands are red. Jonathan tucks one of them into his pocket, and Steve takes the other for himself.

Steve feels Nancy’s fingers tighten around his own, knows instinctively that she’s doing the same thing to Jonathan, and he feels warmer out here in the snow than he had with his hands around a cup of hot chocolate in the house.

There aren’t shooting stars or mistletoe, but they’ve beaten monsters, human and not. They have near supernatural good luck, and somehow, they can spend weeks in each other’s atmosphere and come out on the other side seemingly more enchanted.

So, he decides to make a wish anyway, without stars or trinkets, that every December will be like this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun Fact! In 1986 the Lions and the Packers had the highest scoring game in Thanksgiving history.
> 
> Major shout outs to: [ballantine](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ballantine/pseuds/The%20Stephanois) and [cortexikid](http://archiveofourown.org/users/cortexikid/pseuds/cortexikid) for letting me shout at their inboxes when I couldn’t figure out what I was doing with this (and for contributing their own, lovely pieces to the fandom. Seriously guys, go read their fics). My husband, Jeff, for being born in ‘77 and explaining how things did and did not work to child of ‘89. [tetrahedrals](http://archiveofourown.org/users/tetrahedron%0A), who beta’d a chapter while we were both on vacation and did a marvelous job keeping my plot focused.
> 
> And, of course, my always amazing friend, roommate, Disney cohort, and beta, [Liz](http://archiveofourown.org/users/kazzashepard) for literally letting me walk into her room in a tizzy over this story time and time again, sketching up a pretty kickass monster, and being a good enough best friend to notice when my bras are new (that and, I reiterate, the betaing...I honestly don’t think she was expecting a story of this magnitude for the OT3 from Stranger Things! She puts up with a lot from me!)
> 
> Also minor shout out to Kate Bush’s, ‘December Will Be Magic Again’ ;D
> 
> Thank you all for sticking with this and leaving such wonderful comments! I know I tend to repeat myself in that regard, but you all have been some of the loveliest people to talk to and it’s been a blast to get to connect with so many fans as I write this. Te quiero <3
> 
> Have more questions about these kids and their misadventures? You can find me on [Tumblr ](http://feoplepeel.tumblr.com/) here and [twitter](https://twitter.com/FeoplePeel) here!


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